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Preseason rankings rundown


Preseason rankings are, in general, pretty meaningless. They don't hold much weight once the pads and helmets go on.

That said, it can't hurt to look at them, right? I found a pair of recently posted rankings of Pennsylvania high school football teams -- one by maxpreps.com and another by Pennsylvania Football News. In both, only one YAIAA team makes the Top 25 for each of the state's four classifications (A through AAAA).

Could it be a strong-looking Central York team from YAIAA's Division I? What about defending District 3 Class AAA champ West York? Or maybe it's Delone Catholic, the twice-defending YAIAA Division III champs with a quite a track record in Class AA.

Drumroll please.....

Surprise, surprise. It's West York, fresh off last year's incredible District title run. Ron Miller's Bulldogs were rated No. 8 in the state in Class AAA by maxpreps, and No. 10 by pafootballnews.com.

It's worth noting that Northern York, which plays in the Mid-Penn conference, did make pafootballnews.com's "Teams to watch" list for Class AAA.

It goes without saying to take these with a hefty pinch of salt. I can't speak to the credibility of either source, but I would hope both have done their homework. Regardless, trying to rank high school football teams before the season starts is a tricky task, at best.