The Reporter/Times Herald/Montgomery Media Football Team of the Decade Tournament
Last week Gov. Tom Wolf announced that professional, collegiate, high school and amateur athletes throughout Pennsylvania can begin the process to return to action under modified health and safety guidelines.
This development provides hope that high school sports will start on time in the fall.
To get prepared for football training camps that hopefully begin in August and to look back on the last 10 years, we are asking fans to decide the top area football team of the 2010s in the Reporter/Times Herald/Montgomery Media Team of the Decade Football Tournament.
The bracket, which will include 16 teams from the 2010 to 2019 seasons, will be unveiled in the Sunday, June 21 editions of the Reporter and the Times Herald and online at www.papreplive.com.
The field will be decided by our sports staff, but we are open to suggestions. We encourage readers, fans, coaches and athletes to reach out and email sports@thereporteronline.com to nominate a team and explain why they belong in the 16-team field.
We are looking at a number of things while trying to choose the top 16 teams. Overall records and strength of schedule play a big role, as do league championships and district and state playoff success. We will also look at the individual talent on each team, the memorable moments they created and more.
Some schools in the area are poised to land multiple teams in the tournament. Archbishop Wood won six state championships in the 2010s while North Penn was consistently at the top of the Suburban One League and always a threat in the District 1 playoffs. Upper Dublin has a pair of District 1 championships, winning the 4A classification in 2015 and 5A in 2018. La Salle tallied a state championship game appearance and won three Philadelphia Catholic League titles.
Other schools have teams that completed impressive turnarounds that could secure spots in the bracket. Cheltenham was 2-8 in 2017 before winning the District 1-5A championship and reaching the state title game in 2019. Pope John Paul II won one total game in the 2014 and 2015 seasons before building up to winning the program’s first District 1/12-3A subregional crown in 2019.
There are plenty of other teams in the area worthy of a spot in the 16-team field. Make sure they’re known by sending in your nominations.
When the bracket is finalized, fans will vote on matchups to decide the winners. Polls will be posted on Twitter @ReporterSports.
