Parity strikes area high school football

I usually like to give it two weeks before I feel I have a good handle on who the teams really are in high school football. There are always results in the first week that catch you by surprise, but they aren't all that shocking once you are in Week 8.

Well, this year, we are a month into the season and its still hard to judge these teams.

For instance, Chestnut Ridge gets handled by Windber in the opener, but beat Conemaugh Township by two touchdowns two weeks later. In the week between those games, Township shut out Windber.

Here's another one: DuBois beats Clearfield, Clearfield beats Indian Valley by 15 points, and Indian Valley comes back to beat DuBois. Meanwhile, Clearfield also beats Tyrone.

A third example of this merry-go-round is Juniata Valley beating Tussey Mountain, which goes on to beat Claysburg-Kimmel, which in turn beats ... Juniata Valley. Meanwhile, Tussey almost takes down Everett, which almost beat Bellwood in Bellwood.

Penn Cambria lost badly to Richland. Richland lost to Central Cambria. So, of course, Penn Cambria would beat Central Cambria in Ebensburg.

Usually, you have a pretty established hierarchy of teams when it is all said and done. Home field advantage among the smaller area schools isn't as big a deal as it is for Altoona and its opponents, which drive two hours a week. More often than not, turnovers play the biggest role in upsets.

For some reason, there is a greater than usual amount of parity this season. Just look at the league and district standings. Purchase Line is the only undefeated team in the Heritage Conference, Bishop McCort and Forest Hills are the only teams with 4-0 records in the Laurel Highlands Conference, Portage and North State are the only perfect teams remaining in the WestPAC and Central -- which hasn't had a winning season in 12 years, I think -- is the only unblemished team in the Mountain Athletic Conference.

On the flip side, there are only eight teams in District 6 and 5 that haven't won a game yet. That means there are a lot of teams that are have 3, 2 or 1 win playing each other this week.

It's fun to watch, but it's doing nothing for my Fearless Forecast record.