In case anyone cares..

Saw recently the rosters for the 1st annual East/West All-Star football game. Any thoughts that you "experts" may have, would be fun to read.

Here is a link to view the list
http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/ccp.asp?ievent=488073&lis=1&kntae488073=56CCC4A252FC4B18826A7126F978812F&ccp=621448

I saw this the day it was released. I think it's fun second-guessing some things. Nothing personal (and I'm sure if anyone even reads this, they'll have a hissy, though), but here are some basic thoughts:

- Really? Four and sometimes FIVE guys from the same frigging team? To me, that really seems to be against the spirit of this game.
- East Roster:
1. TWO offensive linemen from Milford? OK, I understand that it's Kieth Jones's team...but I think Milford found out this year that size does not equate to effectiveness. Milford was 4-6 and had nearly zero effectiveness up front this season against the good competition.
2.TWO players from Merrimack? Jackson King I suppose I can understand, but Sam Prive never impressed me in any of th egames I saw. Especiallky for someone who got lots of mention in the press. that's a lot of kids from a team that won 2 division games (one of which was by 1 point)
3.No players from Goffstown? I'm not sure how many of their startres were seniors...but it seems that the one seed in a very good division should have had some players from their team.
4.Tim Belliveau was not that good. Saw Souhegan about 6 times this season. Decent kid, but very average. Was shocked he made first team all-state. Still shocked now.
5.No Steven Dwight from Manchester Memorial?? I thought he and Dalton were two of the best players in D1, unfortunately stuck on a mediocre team. Knowing Jones's philosophy of pounding the rock on the ground, Dwight is an almost guaranteed 4 yards. Strange.
6. One player from Hollis/Brookline? A team with a great senior class who was a premier team in D3 this year...that doesn't make sense either. I thought the same about Bedfore at first...but then realized that they had mostly juniors!
- West Roster:
1. Cool to see legend Joe Raycraft on staff with his son Bill. That should be fun.
2. Surprised to see that Portsmouth's big senior lineman (can't remember the name) isn't in the mix.
3. Billy Lane, Jerrickson Fedrick, Emmitt Smith, and Kevin Davies??? Holy crap, who are they going to give the ball to? Haha!
4. Was happy to see the Bidgood kid from Timby get the nod. I think he was underrated...seemed like a good pro-style QB to me.
5. Two kids from Sanborn Regional??? Did I miss something here?
6. I wonder if Sean O'Gormann from Londonderry was even nominated. I know he missed a lot of the season for a supposed suspension...so perhaps not. Still...was a pretty good player in D1.

I think I know more about the East roster just because of where I live. I know that Dalton and Pellerin are both elite-quality defensive backs, but I don't envision DB's playing a big role in this game since West's obvious strength is the run game. The East line will be big...but I'm not sure how effective they'll be. Brown from Central is a game-changer, and McCrae from South was a stud. Chinninis from Souhegan has some wheels, but had a pretty quiet season as a senior. King from Merrimack got a ton of press, but didn't do much his senior season when he was the whole team. The QB from West is very good as well.

But, with the resume some of the runners on the West team have...and those studs from both Exeter and Pinkerton (a combined 9 kids)...I think West runs away with this one.

Sofaking, I agree with you on some points and disagree on others, so I'll break them down one at a time.

- 4 or 5 guys from the same team: Disagree. The way I see it, these All-Star games should be the best players, regardless of team and class. I think some of the better players in the NHIAA this year didn't get to play since this is for seniors only, and I for one would really like to see a game that was ACTUALLY the best players. Same thing with the teams, if one team (ie Pinkerton) is loaded in a year, all the kids should be able to go. Case in point, the lack of Ryan Coombs, in my opinion one of the best players and athletes I saw this year.
1) Big Lineman making the Cut: Agree. I think, especially in high school football, having talented, athletic guys is better for the team than making sure they are big. Ryan Belleville from BG made this team and is relatively small, but like you I was not impressed by Prive this year. I didn't get to see Milford play so I cannot comment on them.
2) Jackson King: Disagree. Best player on a mediocre team, like some of the other guys you mentioned, but definitely talented enough to be in this game.
3) Goffstown looked good to me this year, but I'm not sure who was a senior and who wasn't. As I said, best players SHOULD be the ones playing, regardless of seniority, so I think Goffstown should have some kids on this team.
4) Beliveau: Agree/Disagree. He wasn't great but I don't know who would have gotten the spot over him. Did he make the team for offense of defense?
5) Dwight: AGREE. Saw this kid a few times, including a scrimmage pre-season against BG, and he was a BEAST. Fast, 250-ish pounds of muscle, and his legs just churn away all day.
6) Didn't see H/B play but again, best players should make it and they were a good team so I would expect more than one player from them.
1) Father-son coaching combo: Agree.
2) Portsmouth D-lineman: Agree. Can't remember his name either but I assume you mean the kid that knocked down the passes against Souhegan? He is a junior if that's who you're thinking of.
3) Lane, Jerickson, Smith, and Davies to run the ball: Agree. Hard as a coach to figure out who gets all the carries, but these guys will make the East team work. And with Coach Jones taking a bunch of heifers, I don't know that they have the team speed to keep these guys contained. I like my guy Cornell from BG at linebacker for the East team but don't expect one guy to make the difference, especially when you get more than one of these guys in the backfield and start faking who gets the ball.
4) I thought he was a good QB too, played poorly against BG when I saw him but JAF posted a link to his local newspaper and some of his other games were VERY good.
5) Sanborn: No comment. Haven't seen the kids play so I won't say yea or nay.
6) O'Gromann: Again, no comment. I don't know the situation.

Portsmouth's d-loneman was Sean Miller, a very good player. Their other 2 main guys on the line (Ricky Holt and Kurtis Leonard) are both only juniors.

but when he does I usually agree with him. As in this case.

The thing about all star games is they get to be political.

Coach has a grudge against a player, he doesn't nominate him.

Coach has a grudge against a player, he doesn't vote for him. { reason number 104 why I don't care for Coach Batista}.

Very hard to take politics out of these contests. Someone ALWAYS has an agenda.