Sometimes promising seasons are cut down. DeMatha football started out hot, but then suffered consecutive losses to league foes Gonzaga, Good Counsel, and Saint Johns College. The Stags managed to beat Bishop McNamara and Archbishop Carroll to finish as the fourth playoff seed in the WCAC but they lost 14-17 to Saint John’s College in the first round. We must admit that we were a little sad about the 6-5 overall record and a fourth place finish in the WCAC – until we remembered that we had another picture of Alexis Savage to post.
Alexis Savage knows that hoops are on the horizon.
The Howard Bison football team also started hot when they registered a win at a UNLV and a close loss to Kent State, two FCS schools. The University of Richmond put a chill on when they destroyed the Bison 68-21 in September. Then North Carolina Central University left the normally potent offense frozen when they orchestrated a 13-7 victory in DC. Howard (7-4) eventually finished second in the MEAC despite losing to Hampton University in what we like to call the Bourgeoisie Bowl and missed their sliver of an opportunity to play in the Celebration Bowl, instead.
All of that losing makes us sad. Look people, studies have shown that the majority of teenage boys like modest pictures of extremely hot women so we’re really just providing a serviceable means of introduction here. Let the Ooh La La’s of the Howard University Showtime Marching Band take you away from all of this.
We are better now. Don’t give up on us! We’re not going to let some silly football games get in the way of making some real progress on this blog. We’re total homers for DeMatha Catholic High School for Boys and Howard University, here. We’re never going to pretend to be anything else even if the analytics say that we should diversify for greater SEO appeal. We aren’t in it for the short term game, are we? We’re in this thing for the long haul.
For instance, don’t talk to us about how well your child reads at three-years-old. Talk to us about how well your child reads at thirty. That seems to be a better measurement of a job done well. We are all about progress here on The Chronicles Of Six and both football teams are up to challenges ahead. To lay some more smooth Black vernacular on you, DeMatha is certainly going to DeMatha. Caylin Newton has three more years of eligibility at Howard University but he was already named the MEAC Rookie of the Year.
You know How It Goes Down… We’re going to continue to keep you posted.
2017 will certainly be a year that goes down in Saint Johns College history if only for ending a very long streak of losing in football to DeMatha. The Cadets finally managed to have a good day and bested the Stags on the gridiron 38-22 in front of their homecoming crowd on Military Road.
It isn’t hard to put this win into perspective for Saint Johns because no one on their current football roster was born the last time that they beat the Stags in 1994. We announced some time ago that Cadets changed the football landscape and that the rivalry with the Stags was back. With this win, Saint Johns will undoubtedly justify the drastic changes that they have undertaken but it probably still rings a little hallow.
DeMatha falls to 4-4 on the year, and 0-3 in the WCAC. For the first time in a while, DeMatha is fighting to be the fourth-best team in a very competitive league. Looking at the strength of schedules, DeMatha doesn’t have any significant wins at this point in the season and Saint Johns merely joined the ranks of Good Counsel and Gonzaga who also beat the Stags this year. The loss to Saint Johns College was their third in a row in a season in which DeMatha has struggled against upper echelon football teams.
The defending WCAC champions are now fighting just to make the playoffs. DeMatha needs two straight wins at Bishop McNamara (October 28) and Archbishop Carroll (November 4) in order to control their own destiny. Nothing will come easy for the Stag squad this season because, by now, everybody smells blood.
There have been some bright spots for the DeMatha Stags football team. Senior Judson Tallandier was named to the American Under-19 football squad. Senior Kicker Jake Dolinger is showing why four-year Stags are still the most sought after student-athletes in NCAA recruiting after recording a notable score on the SAT.
Yet DeMatha finds themselves in an unfamiliar position because they are unable to dominate key aspects of football games against teams -like they have in years past. Sacks and rushing touchdowns are both down in 2017.
Stags are in unfamiliar territory.
The Big Four all have offensive and defensive lines that hover around the average weight of 300 lbs per player -and that makes for very tough sledding.
Once more the Stags are still trying to find their footing in a sport that isn’t very forgiving. DeMatha has even tried changing quarterbacks to no avail: both Tyler Lenhart and Eric Najarian have notched two losses as the starter. The ability to overcome injuries and distractions is also a huge part of football and the DeMatha Stags still aren’t totally out of contention yet.
If DeMatha can claim the fourth seed outright, there is still a chance to defend their title and win a fifth straight WCAC championship. Can they come back unscathed from the verge of annihilation in 2017? Stranger things have happened to the Stags so we will have to keep you posted.
The Washington Catholic Athletic Conference is arguably the toughest high school sports association in the United States of America.
The toughest conference in America.
The WCAC has been at the forefront of ushering in a new era of recruiting that has shifted the landscape of secondary education, and football is no exception.
The tale of the WCAC in football, and really all the sports played is a story of the best of teams and the worst of teams. The conference known for producing nationally ranked basketball teams in the same season is unique in that all programs at least enjoy the privilege of greatness by association. Unlike basketball, which has exhibited relative parity over the years, WCAC football programs are worlds apart. The schism between schools that made the unwavering commitment to compete on a national level in football and those that didn’t clearly strained the organization more than the other sports. The result was a lopsided mess military guys call a SNAFU: systems normal all fouled up.
DeMatha, Good Counsel, Saint John’s College, and Gonzaga would all make headlines with their football programs by notching clutch wins in national upsets. The four schools with the biggest football traditions in the WCAC continued to prosper, and all of them could be seen on national broadcasts via ESPN over the last five years. The WCAC schools in Virginia were the first to secede and they ultimately identified football as the cause. Bishop Ireton, Paul VI, and then Bishop O’Connell decided that they couldn’t compete with the rising talent level that all of the exposure generated for the Big Four. Archbishop Carroll, Bishop McNamara, and Saint Mary’s Ryken were equally unnerved by the massive arms race occurring in football but hung on despite taking a lot of lumps.
The WCAC was forced to reorganize and update the rules to accommodate a stronger commissioner. Next year they will unveil a two-tiered football schedule and they have expanded to include The Heights School, which is already competing in soccer this year. The conference will be unified in the sport of football again, but in this interim year get ready to see more of just how we got this way in the first place. The Big Four will continue to dominate, sometimes shuffling win and losses between each other but with seldom a loss to the other WCAC members. The 2017 WCAC football season has already begun with Gonzaga pummeling Bishop McNamara 38-0 on Eye Street with a freshman starting at quarterback.
There just aren’t too many schools that want to face that kind of ability to reload on a yearly basis and the Mustangs (0-5) deserve some sort of award for courage. Deeper programs like Gonzaga keep attracting Division 1 caliber players because of examples set by alumni like Kevin Hogan in the NFL. This is just one example but the Gonzaga Purple Eagles (5-1) are still fighting to break into their first WCAC championship game since 2011. Gonzaga is clearly a playoff team. The Eagles were even cut off from competing for the tiny DC “state title,” but they haven’t won a WCAC football championship since 2002. Gonzaga is our pick to finish fourth this year but if they stay healthy they can give anyone problems, for a spell.
Our Lady of Good Counsel will also be challenged to sustain their glory on the gridiron in 2017. The WCAC’s winningest football coach Bob Milloy retired in 2016, after only the second season since 2004 in which they didn’t appear in the championship game. Replacing legends is never easy but the Falcons (4-1), again, looked within their program and picked a gamer in head coach Andy Stephanelli. Good Counsel is still solid and they have shocked teams in the area that might have forgotten that the Falcons were league champions in football from 2009-2012. Still, after facing what should be the top two teams in the WCAC in the ensuing fortnight we believe that home field advantage should be enough to rattle Gonzaga on October 27.
The Saint John’s College Cadets are proof that the transition to elite status in football can come at a steep price. SJC suffers from an identity crisis and every season that goes by seems to make it worse because they certainly sacrificed the most and have the least to show for it. The Cadets opted to go the full-on Moneyball route, but cash hasn’t proven to be a panacea so far. Program alumnus and Under Armour founder Kevin Plank financed a complete overhaul that included an injection of transfers and two head coaches at one point. The Cadets have been knocking on the door in recent years with a lot of notable wins, but none against the defending WCAC champions in the last quarter century.
From last week: Kevin Doyle, the top-rated QB recruit in the D.C. area, verbally commits to Michigan https://t.co/GmJa2Yrt2M
SJC was supposed to be overwhelming the league with their unlimited resources, but they have underachieved in WCAC football and they have to look back to the old Metro conference for their last title in 1989. Head coach Joe Casamento is trying to change all of that by unleashing the new and improved program on the top teams in the nation but the cracks in the plan have been obvious. The Christian Brothers are probably wondering if a 2-2 record was worth these changes but they haven’t given up the lofty expectations that they have for their football program. School missions aside, whether or not superstar transfers can manufacture enough team chemistry for a title is the question that has relegated the Cadets to second place of late, despite attaining a national ranking in USA Today earlier this season.
The four-time defending WCAC football champion DeMatha Stagshave also had a lot to do with that. Head coach Elijah Brooks is now unquestionably the best in the league and his players desperately want to add to this budding dynasty. The Stags lost their opening game of the season but have reeled off four straight wins since then, two of them shutouts. The DeMatha defense hasn’t given up a score in the second half of a football game since Bishop Gorman got the better of them in August. DeMatha (4-1) will open WCAC play against a Gonzaga team that already has three shutouts under their belt on October 6. It is safe to say that everyone is coming for the kings of the WCAC and SJC and Good Counsel are good tests for the Stags to improve their national ranking in USA Today.
It is a long way down from the top and the rest of the WCAC will just be searching for ways to get by in football in 2017. The faces and names might be old news but the essence of the conference is probably going to remain the same for a little while.
With a league that routinely produces heavyweights, the WCAC will realize that they were wise to err on the side of caution and let some teams sit the football slugfest out. What we have this year are six teams competing for the WCAC trophy in football and the rest will rejoin the league next year when the new rules take effect. DeMatha, SJC, Good Counsel, Gonzaga, McNamara, and Carroll could finish in that order during this abbreviated 2017 football season.
It is worth writing that basketball seems to be the honey that kept Bishop Ireton, Ryken, O’Connell, and Paul VI in the WCAC hive. (Those teams will all play independent schedules in 2017, and they won’t be in contention for a title in football this year.) The overall risk-reward for student-athletes is better in basketball and the notoriety of the league has made it a pipeline to Division 1 schools, and beyond. Football is still trying to find a balance in the WCAC, but the shadow of a more formidable conference is still going to bash each other with everything they have in the meanwhile. The only thing that could stop this show is if the culture changes and WCAC football is on the rise.
As per usual, the traditional rivalry games are worth experiencing live. The oldest, continuous football game in the country between Gonzaga and Saint John’s is on November 4. Bishop McNamara is hosted by Archbishop Carroll on October 7. Good Counsel will try to pull off an upset against DeMatha on Friday, October 13 at the PG Sports & Learning Complex. Then DeMatha will travel to Saint John’s on Military Road on October 21.
Did we forget to mention that DeMatha vs Gonzaga is October 6? We hope that you tune into DM Stags TV to check this one out free of charge on the NFHS Network. The Big Four are all ranked in the top ten in The Washington Post,so everyone should remember. Follow the#WCAC hashtag on Twitter if the#DeMatha (live) hashtag is too lit. We have you covered here at The Chronicles of Six, so always check for updates in our Sports category! Let us keep connecting you to the reputable sources.
This is DeMatha spirit week in preparation for the homecoming game this Friday versus Friendship Collegiate. Watch this video as many times as possible for zero house points. There are a lot of recruiting success stories in this video, and it also goes a long way to show that DeMatha has a deep roster of stud football players. Return to Glory tells the story of how the latest championship run unfolded and is a great example of the DeMatha Family. I hope we can keep the party going.
Watch it again, for six Soul Credits. There were some serious ballers in that video, too. There are guys getting it done in college in that video. Cameron Phillips is just one of the many but it is worth mentioning that he is closing in on the receiving records over there at Virginia Tech. Ju’Whaun Bentley, Taiwan Deal, John Lovett, are all in there with Principal Emeritus John Moylan. Father Damian and Ed King are in there too. Seriously watch it again. Alright now watch Cam for a minute because he clearly has the spirit.
HE'S OUR HERO ❗️
Vote for @CamPhil5 as @HeroSportsNews as CFB Hero of the Week
Anyway, we hope that you are hanging in the #NoKaepernickNoNFLboycott. Remember that you can always watch college football and high school football repeats. Don’t tweet any NFL highlights or participate in any fantasy leagues. We think it is pretty safe to say that some of these guys are going to the league and that we hope it is a better one when they get there. We are going to keep it digi. Go Stags!
Kyle McFadden and Maryland Sports Access have some pretty good coverage of the DeMatha vs McDonogh football game. DeMatha won the contest 17-14 and kept McDonogh out of the end zone in the second half, in an otherwise lackluster game for the Stags. DeMatha improved to a record of 3-1 on the season but they are still in the processes of learning and fine-tuning.
The Maryland Terrapins were in attendance, and there may have been performance anxiety issues. DeMatha football has emerged as an unofficial pipeline to the University of Maryland, and the Stag alumni helped coin the popular recruiting wave moniker, “The Movement.” The Old Line State has made significant gains in the sport of football at the high school and college levels and recognition is still on the rise.
As you can see I am not the only person that can cover the Stags. In recent years DeMatha vs McDonogh has been one of those games that can determine who will be top dog in the state of Maryland, and it draws plenty of attention. The University of Maryland definitely took notice when these two heavyweights from The Free State played each other because both teams produce top, Division 1 talent. Anyway, click the link in the first paragraph to read Kyle McFadden’s article with better embedded Tweets. As always, DMStagsTV provided a replayable broadcast for your enjoyment and you can follow all of the Stags home games there. (Alumni teachers Sean O’Connor & Cory Puffett provided the play-by-play this week.) Crabcakes and football! This is what we do.
Friendship Collegiate Academy will travel to the DeMatha home field at the PG Sports and Learning Complex next week, September 22. As usual, we are going to keep it digital and keep you posted here on The Chronicles of Six. Go Stags!
The boycott of the National Football League over the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick is gaining traction despite the initial push back against the protests that started this whole thing in the first place. Colin Kaepernick is the most recent brave individual in the NFL to lend his fame to the plights of humanity and justice which are the causes of consternation from those able to hire him. Many writers have already exhausted the possibilities that could have prevented him from playing in the NFL, or the necessary mental gymnastics to arrive at the conclusion that Kaepernick detracted from the game. (Quite eloquently and thoroughly we might add.) Today we are going to take a hard look at why this is exactly the kind of silent protest that we need, and how it has been effective, so far.
Buttressed against the Black Lives Matter movement, Colin Kaepernick ushered in a social consciousness to a sport that rarely indulges in controversy. The fact that Black Lives Matter is viewed as controversial is baffling to those that understand the simplicity of the message: that Black people’s lives matter. However, there is no shortage of fools or pundits willing to twist the message for personal gain. The worst of these lowlifes seek to perpetuate the systematic oppression of Black people through their willful ignorance or blatant racism. The #NoKaepernickNoNFL hashtag has suffered the same disparagement as #BlackLivesMatter because they both strike the same nerve, but maybe Colin did it more acutely? The genius of the defiant is that they are the persistent jab in the face a country that is currently denying that it has a black eye.
A young Mohammad Ali was a conscientious objector to participating in the Vietnam War. Ali was particularly peeved when he was trolled by The Houston Post, who refused to use his chosen name. [Photo via Broke-Ass Stuart via Imgur.com]
Follow the money.
Football is big business. Nothing engages the short American attention span more than money, but football might be a close second. Football is violent and dangerous. Football players are among the last of the gladiators who are expected to sacrifice their bodies and long-term health willingly for the cause of sport as recently highlighted in a Freakonomics podcast. The owners of NFL teams are all very white and enjoy a modicum of power that comes from the extreme wealth that it generates. Football team owners expect obedience because the power that they wield is great in shaping the American institution that has become the embodiment of the country. Colin kneeled in defiance of that collective thumbs down, which I am certain that he knew was coming, and the colosseum gasped at his insolence.
Protesters stand behind the words of Muhammad Ali and against the War in Vietnam. [Photo courtesy of Amistad Digital Resources, photographer Builder Levy.]
NFL owners must have noticed that his action ultimately detracted from their bottom line and branding because they collectively turned down his services but unwittingly elevated Kaepernick’s message in the process. Racism devoid of power is just flimsy bigotry, but the overzealous defense against the questioning of the very foundations of America by the NFL shows that all of this is tragically deeper than football. Kaepernick protesting was not just an act. Others realizing what was at stake put their celebrity in the most lucrative sport on the line when they joined in, breaking the silence necessary to make America move on. If there is one thing that history has shown us, it is that institutional racism and systematic oppression fear the Black Messiah and all iterations of such. To sacrifice a multimillion dollar career and to use what he already earned to promote Black causes makes Colin Kaepernick nothing short of a hero.
The nature of the demonstration, itself a model on American civil disobedience, calls out dissenters as hypocrites and racists.
Take What The Defense Gives You
These ideas of silence, distraction, and moving on are also not new, and they deserve to be put into some sort of historical context to see exactly what we are moving on from. (Candace Cui for Broke-ass Stuart) The United States of America wants you to move on from the unarmed Black deaths at the hands of policemen even before the vacant convictions for those deaths makes the news. The good old USA also wants Black people to move on from unequal incarceration rates, Jim Crow, and slavery. Football is just the latest interruption designed to take Americans away from all that darned thinking that can lead to changing racist policies. (Don’t even mention reparations.) But Colin Kaepernick made it that much more difficult to turn the channel on the issues of policing, justice, and race that have always plagued America.
Cui bono is a Latin phrase that is translated “for whose benefit?” What should be obvious to everyone right now is that refusing to even acknowledge the value of Black life can only serve the oppressor. The oppressor’s narrative dismisses the struggles of the oppressed. America was singularly enriched through the infliction of suffering on others so it comes as no surprise that her sporting spectacles often reflect the ills racism. The National Football League, as an organization, has been a direct beneficiary of an alliance with the United States Department of Defense after it was reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that sporting teams were paid to put on patriotic displays in a $53 million-dollar advertising campaign from 2012-2015.
The NFL is silently complicit, at best, in the proverbial fuck game to take as much as you can for as long as you can. Each individual NFL team owner weighed in on the decision by not offering Colin Kaepernick a chance to prove himself worthy in a training camp this past summer. Blackballing specific participants has happened before in other sports too, but few have the atrocious record of the National Football League. The New York Times even pointed out that the Washington Redskins –the very name of the team is a racial slur, was the last NFL team to integrate Black players on September 30, 1962. The NFL had difficulty with modern ideas like Blacks playing the central position of quarterback, or Blacks leading teams as the head coach, also.
The greatest athletes of their time rallied support around Muhammad Ali at a special conference in Cleveland, Ohio in June of 1967. [Photo courtesy of Cleveland.com]
Baseball might be America’s favorite pastime but Cuba and Jason Turner have shown us that Baseball diplomacy is an untimed exercise. Football is the most popular sport in America today and generates more money per game at very predictable intervals. Modern professional football culminates in the Super Bowl: the greatest solitary sports media event that the world has ever seen. Football is really good at capitalism. The nature of the game lends itself towards consumption with high ticket prices and expensive tailgating rituals. Furthermore, football does more to explain the type of diplomatic measures that the United States is willing to export today because the violence of the sport needs to achieve the desired effect within a specific allotment of time.
The concentrated emotion of football serves the reticent patriarchy along with those few great white fathers that gave us this grand game to enjoy. Drinking and fighting are direct appeals to the modern-day Minute Men that make up the male dominated warrior class in the United States. Just as pub jingles and songs made up the bulk of the call to arms for the revolution in 1776, football is an effective tool for making sure revolution doesn’t happen again. Propaganda can work in more than one direction and it is hard to imagine that the systematic oppression that employs football to serve a racist agenda didn’t take a direct hit with Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner before games.
They Can’t Stop The Run
#NoKaepernickNoNFL diverts viewers from the diversion. This shifting of the attention eats into the space of the unique partnership that the NFL has exploited by maintaining the status quo. With week one of the NFL season in the books, it is apparent that ratings are down and ticket sales have suffered even if you don’t believe BET or Sports Illustrated, respectively. (See below, at the bottom of the article, via Twitter.) Colin Kaepernick jerseys are highly sought-after memorabilia and the world has taken notice even though American football hasn’t spread around the globe with the tenacity of baseball or made the popularity gains of basketball. The silent, national anthem protest occupies the moral high ground now, and the NFL appears visibly shook along with the heart and soul of the United States.
Either you believe that having the right to protest something is what it means to be an American in the first place or you are inviting an alternative. The dissonance over the Francis Scott Key’s refrains doesn’t last long. Kneeling during the national anthem has even trickled down to high school football in some instances, but the focus of the gripe should remain squarely in the National Football League where it rightfully belongs. America will produce more conscientious Patriots and college football players are still proud of their schools. But now more Americans are experiencing the frustration of the dysfunction than ever before -and the surfacing of football radicals says that the feeling will continue to permeate our popular entertainment and leisure.
The National Football League is the classic case of the squeaky wheel needing oil if the predominantly Black players ever saw one, but now Black celebrity fans are chiming in.
Silence on the matter indicates a tacit agreement with white supremacy and Manhood has moved from physical tests to cerebral pursuits, self-control, and determination. If American football is described in the terms of a triumph of wills then nothing embodies that more than steady and methodical plodding of a good running game. While the pace of viral murder videos of unarmed Black civilians in the streets has seemed to slow*, the Black Lives Matter movement got new legs when a qualified NFL starter was kept from plying his trade in the 2017 season. Excluded in the very prime of his career, Colin Kaepernick showed what could happen to you if you dare to fight against racist institutions.
There are a lot of ways to take a life. Kaepernick relinquished much of what he dedicated his life to when his NFL dreams were dashed. An untold amount of work goes into crafting an NFL career as bright as his was, and yet it would all be taken away in the hopes that folks would just move on. We, the people who are not afraid to bend our knees with Colin Kaepernick, cannot just simply move on. We are all affected by it and to just shut the fuck up and take it is not really an option that we are willing to explore when it comes to racial injustice, anymore. Colin Kaepernick deserves our solidarity for finally creating new, positive, and inspiring imagery that captures the spirit worthy of Black lives.
As long as NFL owners want to collectively pretend that Colin Kaepernick’s services could not be utilized, we should also pretend that the NFL is representing one rotten root in America’s racist foundation and boycott. The message that would be sent is also simple: There is no escaping this growing problem, but we can all face it. Joining the strike against the National Football League ensures immortality on the right side of history and The Chronicles of Six won’t cover professional football in 2017, anyway. So let’s see if we can’t get Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling statue enshrined in Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
The question was posed, what is the manly football man to do in the face of deprivation for the sport that he has been conditioned to love? The answer for The Chronicles of Six has been the ESPN Player and to watch all of the NCAA games, as well as a subscription to DeMatha Stags Television on the NFHS Network. Everybody is different. Don’t be ashamed if you lack the discipline to glance over the game as you flip past channels but try not to tweet scores or promote a racist product. Grown folks are putting in work. We are Giants of men, and we can learn to subdue our passions and improve our lots in life.
You just need to develop a steely resolve for these issues. If that doesn’t work, try putting more spices on your food and reading all of the articles about Colin Kaepernick from The Undefeated that are in the first link.
*It would be very interesting to look at the numbers of unarmed Black people killed by police before and after Colin Kaepernick began his not-so-subtle dissent in our next piece.
DeMatha football suffered the first loss of the season at the hands of the defending national champion Bishop Gorman Gaels in Las Vegas, Nevada yesterday. DeMatha Catholic High School running back MarShawn Llloyd is out for the season after breaking his arm in two places in the first half of play. The Stags were unable to rally around their injured star when he landed awkwardly after fighting to extend a busted play, and they would eventually fall 35 – 23. The home team’s victory was in doubt for most of the game and DeMatha still managed to look good under the bright lights of a prime time ESPN broadcast. MarShawn Lloyd notched the score up to 10 – 0 when he confounded Gorman’s defense for a 30 yard touchdown run in the first quarter of play.
Emblematic of DeMatha toughness, Lloyd not only gave an interview after the game, he didn’t even take an injury time out on the field after his gruesome tumble and instead hustled off the gridiron under his own power. Inside DeMatha Football caught up with MarShawn and the entire DeMatha Family wishes him a successful surgery and rapid recovery.
The DeMatha Stags (0-1) head into the Fall after the loss to Bishop Gorman (1-0) in Las Vegas, Nevada in a nationally televised high school football opener.
The DeMatha Stags continued the fight until late in the fourth quarter but ultimately came up short in a rare match-up between two heavyweight programs. As far as football games go, this one lived up to the hype and it was exciting from start to finish. DeMatha never appeared to be completely over-matched in the contest and they played a very technically sound game. Instead, it was big, timely plays that inflicted all of the damage on the Stags and penalties weren’t much of a factor. UCLA recruit and emerging Gaels superstar quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson provided many of the highlights. The Gaels’ quarterback accounted for all five Gorman touchdowns and threw for over 280 yards in his offensive onslaught.
Look man, DeMatha is definitely not getting shut out but Bishop Gorman has a pretty stadium in Sin City. #DMvsBG@ESPN The kickoff was lit.
If you are looking for my hot takes on the game you can find them at the hashtag (#DMvsBG) that I created here on Twitter. There will be more analysis in the forthcoming 2017 WCAC Football Preview, but the DeMatha Stags football team made their alumni and fans very proud in their nationally televised opener. The overall competitiveness of the program is well beyond the comfort zone of most high schools and the elite experiences should pay off in the near future. Certainly one loss against a top echelon foe can be put into proper perspective when there is a long season of football to be played? You should expect DeMatha football to learn from this game and apply it towards the future because that is what faith-filled gentlemen and scholars do.
The four time, reigning Washington Catholic Athletic Conference football champions begin the “strive for five” in one of the hardest ways possible. The DeMatha Stags will travel to Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas and look to improve on a 2016 team that many consider to be the best in school history. Most teams riding a 17 game win streak dating back to October 16, 2015 would ease in to season knowing that they already have to play in the toughest conference in the United States. DeMatha football finished #4 in the USA after their undefeated season in 2016 and Head Coach Elijah Brooks is bringing the faith-filled gentlemen and scholars across the country to Sin City. The Stags have a ton of varsity experience and are looking to continue their ascent in national prominence by toppling other leaders.
DeMatha football is 3-3 in games played on ESPN, ESPN 2, or ESPNU.
— DeMatha Catholic High School (@DeMathaCatholic) August 19, 2017
DeMatha Stags are currently ranked #6 in the USA Today 2017 national high school football preseason poll. Nevada powerhouse Bishop Gorman is also coming off an undefeated season and they are ranked #4 in the same poll, after finishing #1 in the country last year and earning a National Championship. This game is going to be deep. The stage is set for an epic battle and the game will be nationally televised on ESPN this Friday, August 25. This will be the first meeting between these two football teams but the schools have faced each other in basketball twice, splitting the series. Neither school is a stranger to the spotlight and they have both had multiple sports from their programs featured on national cable networks. Both programs are the embodiment of what it means to compete at the most elite level of high school sports in the United States.
The Varsity Experience
In order to consider opening the season on the road against a team that finished number one in the United States you would need the confidence that comes with experience. Coach Brooks was recently tapped to be a coach on the 18U USA National Football team and he is going to be sure that his DeMatha Stags are up to the task. Brooks deserves this high honor and recognition for righting the ship after WCAC foe Good Counsel dominated for a spell. This year he is bringing back plenty of players on both sides of the ball that also know what it takes to win.
#1 Judson Tallandier, #14 Tyler Lenhart, Coach Brooks, #10 Anthony Toro, and #79 Austin Fontaine.
Team captains LB/TE Anthony Toro, DT Austin Fontaine, CB Judson Tallandier and QB Tyler Lenhart are seasoned veterans ready to embark on their senior campaigns. Right up front we once again have a disruptive defensive lineman in Austin Fontaine who is committed to the University of Maryland and ranked #148 on the ESPN Top 300 football recruit rankings. Not too far behind on the gridiron you will find Anthony Toro, who will wear the prestigious #10 in honor of SEAL LT Brendan Looney for the third year in a row. Toro is known as a linebacker with a nose for the ball, his clutch hands as a tight end, and for being an outstanding student athlete with an 1140 on the SAT.
Corner back Judson Tallandier II is ready to climb the rigging in the secondary and undoubtedly make plays as his #1, and early commitment to the University of Pittsburgh suggests. Judson was already a shutdown corner but with the addition of DeMatha and NFL alumnus Josh Wilson as a secondary coach expectations are higher than the tallest mast. Quarterback Tyler Lenhart will take over the helm and look to add to his DeMatha win total while racking up big yardage and scholarship offers. Ty earned his stripes with only just one win as a starter playing behind the best quarterback DeMatha has ever seen, Beau “Mr. Perfect” English, who is now plying his trade at the Air Force Academy. According to The Washington Post the quarterback recruit has a gun for an arm and is considering Harvard among the his top scholarship offers. Their crew will eagerly look to them as examples when charting such a difficult course, but they are all worth their salt.
Offensive Swagger
DeMarcco Hellams is the type of wide receiver/ corner back / athlete that has already made a big splash. DeMarcco is also on the ESPN Top 300 football recruit ranking, in at #50 for the class of 2019. Senior wide receiver Dominic Lyles made the WCAC All Conference Team last year and he will be a big target for Tyler Lenhart this season. Dominic Lyles is also uncommitted but holds five scholarship offers, including Bucknell University. Offensive guard Evan Gregory is likely to be a big part of the offensive line having any football success. Evan is yet another University of Maryland commit that can pass protect and run block with the best of them and will anchor the entire unit. And speaking of the run, DeMatha is going to feature talented running backs that have become representative of the brand.
Cervus elaphus ready to climb.
Myles Miree and MarShawn Lloyd are both returning for their junior and sophomore years, respectively. These young men can tote the football and dazzle you with moves and/or pound you with toughness. Myles and MarShawn have made names for themselves by making big plays as underclassmen and together with senior Detrick Washington they comprise a formidable backfield. (USA Today and Maryland Sports Access, respectively.) Jermaine Johnson, Jr and Dominic Logan-Nealy are two class of 2019 wide receivers who are going to try to add to all that offensive swagger.
Senior tight end John Morgan is headed to the University of Pittsburgh along with co-captain Judson Tallandier II, and he also joins him on the defensive side of the ball at LB/DE. Michael Holt, Jr. will also play both ways and hold the line in his senior season and he already has an offer from West Virginia Wesleyan. Right now all of the other members of the new chain gang aren’t in focus, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t shine.
Not Top Secret: Defensive Intelligence
Year after year, the DeMatha football program has depended on Defensive Coordinator
Cervus elaphus on his way.
Deno Campbell to make other teams have nightmares. The defensive genius is a yet another alumnus that keeps giving back by delivering effective schemes and developing monsters. The Washington Post has named two DeMatha players as the Defensive Player of the Year in the last two years: Shane Simmons and Chase Young. Success like this isn’t an accident and everybody knows that Deno’s boys are going to work hard. There is no mystery in the madness but you can bet that teams will fear the fury of our storied defense and that they will weather the storms ahead.
Defensive tackle Jalen Brown and LB/DE Anthony Hill, Jr. are two seniors that are ready to rock and roll with their mates. The DeMatha Stags have generated interest going into their senior year and would like to rack up scholarship offers along the way to a number one ranking. Cameron Lomax will get to show off his radar at the free safety and strong safety positions. Nick Cross, who holds offers from Syracuse University and Virginia Tech, is also going to be a solid rover between coverage and run support at safety. Alec Solano will see a lot of snaps at the linebacker position in what will be his junior season. Linebacker Kobi Thomas is another senior that is going to be an agent of success for the 2017 DeMatha Stags football team. Like always, there is plenty of room for players to give us some pleasant surprises this season.
If these young men can play with the assured consistency of their predecessors then it is ‘steady as she goes!’
Special Operators
Naim Muhammad is a senior All-American track star and he is back on the football field this Fall. In addition to filling in at defensive back, Naim is always a threat on the returns and he holds an offer from the University of New Hampshire. There were some hiccups kicking the ball last season so let’s hope that DeMatha has it all figured out now.
Some of our team visited long time Principal of DeMatha & kicking coach, John Moylan on his… https://t.co/9Ur9NLUhVD
A special shout out goes to DeMatha football kicking coach, Principal Emeritus John Moylan who is celebrating his 85th birthday today. Anyway, check out what Ty Lenhart and Austin Fontaine had to say about the season on CSN Mid-Atlantic yesterday. The link is in the tweet.
The link to the official schedule can be found right here at the DeMatha website but there are some other notable games after the blockbuster opener. DeMatha will play Gonzaga in the middle of six game home stand, and after a week off on October 6. Saint Johns College High School was the runner up in the WCAC and they will be hungry for revenge on Military Road on October 21. Both conference teams have played DeMatha as tough as anybody in recent years and they have also committed and contributed to the current WCAC football arms race.
The league has been restructured to include a stronger Commissioner and the result is a two-tier system that will be discussed at a later date. Be sure to follow the action on DM Stags TV, especially during weeks 2 – 9, to check out the games being shown there!
[Featured Image open source from University of California Berkeley, UniProt BLAST]
Markelle Fultz will go down in history as the first player from the storied DeMatha Catholic High School for Boys to be selected number one in the 2017 NBA Draft. Peep how it all unfolded on my Twitter and also check the history of Markelle Fultz here, on this site. DeMatha Stags are doing big things and DeMatha Basketball Head Coach Mike Jones couldn’t have asked for better publicity for the program there. Markelle is certainly deserving of this high honor, and he is humble enough to keep God first in his life. In a team preview for the 2014-2015 season, Markelle Fultz was the last person that I mentioned when listing prospects to help bolster college recruiting efforts. Three years later, no wonder that Markelle Fultz is number one.
The DeMatha Stags are looking like they are in fine shape for the 2016-2017 basketball season. They were ranked #12 in the USA Today expert poll before they even played their first game on December 6 against Cardozo. The win against the Clerks was a home opener blowout that showed the new talent that is on the horizon for the all-boys Catholic school in Maryland.
Darren Harvey is unquestionably the leader of this team. Affectionately known as DJ, Harvey is headed to Notre Dame next year which has drawn comparisons to DeMatha great Adrian Dantley. The two have similar styles, although Dantley put up more impressive numbers during his four years as a starter on the varsity. If DJ Harvey can hover around 20 points per game this DeMatha team will find it easier to navigate a challenging schedule. Seniors Josh Carlton and Ryan Allen are poised to provide stability at the center and point guard positions, respectively, and the emphasis on team basketball is obvious in their chemistry.
The trio must share the responsibility for putting up the points in order to remain competitive. A stingy defense that relies on production from everybody is the foundation that DeMatha basketball has built upon successfully in the past. You can follow most of the home games for the Stags on DMStagsTV (sign-up required) but also look for them on regular television.
Cardozo was the first to find out that DeMatha is a squad oriented for play inside the paint that is also long and deep in the front court. Josh Carlton is going to have help at the center position during his first year as a starter because the Stags added Freshman Hunter Dickinson and Sophomore Jordan Wilmore. The Cardozo Clerks found it difficult to score around the rim and only managed a measly six points in the second and third quarters on their way to 95 – 29 loss. (Watch the full game in the DMStagsTV link above.) The stifling defense paved the way for other underclassmen like Sophomore Justin Moore to shine and the entire healthy roster got playing time in the game.
Head Coach Mike Jones is still on his quest to bring DeMatha their fortieth league title but he still recognizes that he has the balance to compete with anyone in the country. With scheduled games against Joseph Wheeler (GA), Roselle Catholic (NJ), Bishop Gorman (NV), Greenforest (GA), and The Patrick School (NJ) the Stags’ ambitions are also focused on national achievement. Alumni and fans would probably expect nothing less but there is something more to this team than meets the eye. There is a tremendous upside to this basketball team because youth will inevitably be served with a 16-man roster almost evenly split between upperclassmen and underclassmen.
For the first time, in what seems like a long time, DeMatha basketball opponents aren’t focused on the current projected number one draft pick Markelle Fultz. This team has a tremendous potential to grow together and the reshuffling of roles has created new opportunities for lesser known players. Senior John McRae and Junior Devin Richmond are two such players that show some of the depth that DeMatha has amassed by maintaining a successful program at every level. While the supernatural scoring ability of a star player will certainly be missed, there are others that are prepared to contribute.
DeMatha still has players on the junior varsity that would start on varsity at schools with less talent. Eleanor Roosevelt high school fell to the Stags on December 8 to give DeMatha (2-0) their second win of the basketball season. (Highlights from that win are from Capitol Hoops below.) Even in a more evenly matched game DeMatha players that are invested in heeding the genius of Coach Jones just seem to fare better. [Bonus: watch Victor Oladipo double-pump smash on Dwight Howard courtesy of my new friend, Ximo Pierto.] The best coach in the league country is known for getting the best out of his players as well as helping them reach their full potential.
Student-athletes that paid their dues will have the chance to earn their rewards with the Stags this year. Senior guard Jhabari Humbert is looking for chance to end his DeMatha career on a high note and he may just get his wish. The USA Today computer rankings have the Stags at #9 in the country and a national title isn’t unreasonable if the team goals that were set at the start of the season are met. Juniors Justin Gielen and Xavier Mabry are both juniors fighting for respect by winning their first Washington Catholic Athletic Conference title.
DeMatha hasn’t won the championship in six years but the future looks bright for the Stags. Sophomores Jamel Melvin, Bobby Carson and Carsten Kolgenik are expected to develop well this season. Mark Fidelis and Paul Smith will also see time over the next few months of what is sure to be a season packed with action. Coach Jones might have taken a cue from the nationally ranked football team this year and built a formidable team. The DeMatha Stags basketball team will be tested early in the National Hoops Festival later today (December 10) as they open their national schedule at home with other elite Nike teams.
[Featured image from Associated Press / Gregory Payan]
Kyle McFadden and 
The Chronicles of Six 