Playoff action is heating up nationwide and we've got 10 great games to highlight.
Photos by Troy Cherry/Scott Seighman/Dave Argyle. Graphic by Ryan Escobar
The latest edition of the MaxPreps Top 10 Games of the Week spotlights some of the best playoff matchups happening this weekend across the nation.
Four of our featured games involve
MaxPreps Xcellent 25 teams including a pair of games in Ohio, where No. 6 Colerain (Cincinnati) takes on traditional power Moeller for the first time in five seasons and defending state champion No. 18 St. Ignatius (Cleveland) has a rematch with Mentor.
As winter approaches, state championships are already on the line in the upper Midwest. In Wisconsin, Waunakee would set a state record with 49 wins in a row while earning its fourth-consecutive state title if it defeats Homestead.
Although it's a first-round game between teams with a combined record of just 13-7, the most-watched playoff game in Florida will be Yulee (Fla.) hosting Taylor County. Derrick Henry, a Yulee senior,
needs only 102 yards to break the national record for career rushing yards that has stood since 1953.
Mitch Stephens, who went 16-4 over the past two weeks, has pulled into a tie with Jamie DeMoney for first place in our season-long predictions contest. Both prognosticators have 85 correct selections in 120 games (70.8 percent). Sitting in third place – just two games off the pace – is Leland Gordon. Fourth place belongs to Stephen Spiewak, who is six games behind the leaders.
Here's a look at this week's Top 10 games of the week along with predictions by MaxPreps staff writers and contributors Mitch Stephens, Steve Montoya, Stephen Spiewak, Kevin Askeland, Leland Gordon and Jamie DeMoney.
MaxPreps Top 10 Football Games of the Week
Mentor (Ohio) at St. Ignatius (Cleveland)The
Region 1 championship game in Ohio's grueling Division I playoff
bracket is a rematch of a Week 3 game won in comfortable fashion by St.
Ignatius on Sept. 8, 48-21. It was the Wildcats' second-straight win and
sixth overall against Mentor in nine meetings since 2004.
Mentor
(11-1) earned this rematch by scoring 28 unanswered points in the final
15 minutes of a stunning 63-56 upset of then-nationally ranked St.
Edward (Lakewood) last Saturday.
Brandon Fritts caught the game-winning 16-yard touchdown pass from
Mitch Trubisky
with less than a minute to play. Fritts, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound junior,
ended the night with season-high totals of 242 receiving yards and four
touchdowns. Trubisky, a North Carolina recruit, had a season-best 476
passing yards and eclipsed the 3,000 passing yards mark for the year.
The 6-3, 200-pound senior has accounted for six touchdowns in each of
Mentor's two playoff victories.
View the MaxPreps Ohio football playoff bracketsWhile Mentor was winning in
theatrical fashion, it was just the opposite for St. Ignatius, which
rolled past an undermanned North Royalton squad in the other Region 1
semifinal game, 56-0. The Wildcats (11-1) had already built a 49-0 lead
by halftime, all thanks to senior running back
Tim McVey, who scored a school-record seven touchdowns.
Mitch Stephens: Mentor 35, St. Ignatius 34
Steve Montoya: Mentor 35, St. Ignatius 30
Stephen Spiewak: St. Ignatius 35, Mentor 34
Kevin Askeland: Mentor 56, St. Ignatius 50
Leland Gordon: St. Ignatius 28, Mentor 27
Jamie DeMoney: St. Ignatius 37, Mentor 24
