Charlie's Prediction Time & Much More

Posted: 08/31/2012 - by Charlie Narmi

You might want to print this one off, it's going to be a while... 

Big games to follow this week:

Class A #8 Prep vs Class A #10 Westside at Burke
4A #5 Dowling at 4A #1 Valley
4A #8 Cedar Rapids Washington at 4A #4 Iowa City West
3A #8 Harlan at Abraham Lincoln
3A #3 Solon at 1A #1 Iowa City Regina
3A #4 Lewis Central at 1A #4 St. Albert
1A #3 Emmetsburg at 2A #2 Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley
2A #8 Union at 1A #5 Aplington-Parkersburg
1A #6 Mason City Newman at 1A #3 Ft. Dodge St. Edmond
A Underwood at 1A Tri-Center
A #2 West Hancock at 1A #10 Saint Ansgar
8 Man #6 Janesville at 8 Man #4 Don Bosco

Congrats to Thomas Jefferson (my parents alma-mater) on their big win last week! Alex Reed from Lewis Central may be the best player in Southwest Iowa but Dominic Wilson (& maybe a St. Albert player of two...) will give Reed a run for his money this year for the Nonpareil City Player of the Year.  Wilson had 5 touchdowns last week on 15 carries to lead the Yellowjackets.

Some former Falcons hit the big time tomorrow.  Matt Waters (#80) and his Ohio University Bobcats are at Penn State.  Yes, that Penn State! Talk about walking into the Lions Den - literally!!  Ohio is a six and a half point underdog in the game but many 'experts' believe Ohio will pull off the upset and will end the year at 12-1 or 13-0.  The game can be seen at 11am on ESPN (after the Notre Dame vs Navy game in Dublin, Ireland at 8am on CBS).

Rick Waters, Luke Waters, Stephen O'Neill and Steve O'Neill at Penn State Stadium August 2012

Above is a picture of Rick & Luke Waters and Stephen & Steve O'Neill inside Penn State's Stadium Thursday afternoon.  It's the 4th largest stadium in the world.

Tomorrow night Jake Gentile (#38) & Andrew Brown (#15) and their South Dakota State JackRabbits will be at the University of Kansas to take on the Jayhawks, now coached by Charlie Weis.  Jake is a backup Free Safety & Andrew is the backup Strong Safety and both will play on special teams.  Good luck to all!

This is the last weekend to purchase your St. Albert NFL Gridiron tickets.  They're $20 - pretty cheap for a season of fun.  You randomly get assigned 3 NFL teams each week and you (the school's computer) take the amount of points they score that week and add them up - most points wins.  Call it Fantasy Football for Dummies.  It's fun & it's for a good cause.  I'm sure someone will be selling them at the game tonight, if not, hit my brother Joe up (Scott Van Pelt look-a-like) because he has plenty to sell.

Heard the hammer got thrown down this week about little kids playing on the hill and all over at games.  I get it, I really do.  But we must remember that these youngsters look forward to Friday night as much or more than their parents.  Let's try and find a way to make sure they have good time - remember these are their memories as well and before you know they'll be hauling their own kids to ballgames and we sure hope it's back up on The Hill.

The SA Spirit Store will be open for business tonight so you and your family can get all the Falcon & Sainte gear you need for the upcoming year.  Remember, these goods make great gifts as well - see NFL Gridiron tickets above as well for gifts.

Thanks to this small group of people that came up Wednesday night to help get Leber Field ready for tonight: Darin Hecker, Greg Johnson, Mike & Linda Golwitzer, Neal Goldsworth and Brian Cihacek.  Support Staff were Harley McCoy, President Jim Brown & Jon Narmi.  Congrats to Brian Cihacek who was our 'Weedeater of the Week!'  There are a ton of people (by percentage) at St. Albert that do a lot of good on various Boards & Groups: Area Board, Foundation Board, Alumni Board, Campaign Committee, Advisory Committee, Ambassadors, Falcon Family Connection, Concession Stand, Spirit Store, youth coaches, etc.  However, to only have 6 people show up to weedeat & clean the grounds prior to the biggest crowd of the year at Leber Field is pathetic.  It's time for more to step-up, whether it's Field Crew, Concession Stand or in other places - like helping out on this website.  Remember, IT'S FOR THE KIDS & THE SCHOOL!!

One of my top two or three artists, Jimmy Buffett, will put a book-end to the summer with a 7pm concert Saturday night in Washington, DC.  You can hear ALL of his concerts LIVE on Radio Margaritaville on Sirius XM Channel 24.  But my favorite group of all-time, The Dave Matthews Band, will get their own station for a month beginning this weekend on Sirius XM.  It will be on Sirius 142 or XM 43.  The station will debut Saturday night at 10pm with a LIVE show from The Gorge Ampitheater in Washington state.

I'll take the Nebraska Cornhuskers to go 9-3 this year.  Notre Dame 8-4 with their BRUTAL schedule.  Here are some of the Irish's oppenents this year: #13 Michigan State, #8 Michigan, Miami, #18 Stanford, #4 Oklahoma & #1 USC.  The Iowa Hawkeyes to go 8-3 with their extremely favorable schedule.  And finally, the Iowa State Cyclones to go 5-7.

Now onto the Titans...  This Senior laden team has 28 Seniors on the team.  St. Albert has 24 boys in its 43 person Senior Class! Let me repeat - Lewis Central has 28 Seniors on their team - St. Albert has 24 boys in their Senior Class.

Lewis Central is led by St. Albert graduate, Jim Duggan.  His Defensive Coordinator is Chris Hanafan & his Offensive Coordinator is Vince Rew - both St. Albert graduates.  They'll match wits with the head man for the Falcons, Kevin Culjat, a St. Albert graduate.  Culjat's Defensive Coordinator is Jake Driver & his Offensive Coordinator is Dr. Tony Stuntz - both St. Albert graduates.  No matter what color they'll be wearing tonight, Falcons will be in full force.

The Titans come in as 13.5 point favorites according to local sports accountants.  With all due respect to the teams the Titans fielded in the early & mid-90's, the 1996 team and the 2008 team, this current team appears to have the chance to be the best in Lewis Central history.  They come in confident after a 38-0 whooping of Abraham Lincoln.  But they know deep down they'll have their hands full tonight.

St. Albert looked awesome last week for the first quarter and a half when they racked up a 28-0 early lead.  The defense is very fast and they like to hit - see #7 Jim Hawk.  The secondary is solid - see Tucker Culjat's interception return for a TD.  The running game was good but the passing game struggled.  Expect Lewis Central to put 8-9 guys near the line of scrimmage to dare/make the Falcons move the ball by throwing.  St. Albert Quarterback, Jon Meyerring, is an exceptional young man & he'll be ready for the challenge.

St. Albert will likely key on Titan Halfback, Alex Reed, when they are on defense, but heady Senior, Sam Duggan, and Sophomore, Austin Simmons, can run as well and look for them to throw in a lot of play action passes to try and get the Falcons to over-commit to the run.

Did you know that Coach Culjat has NEVER lost a regular season game as a Head Coach.  That's right, 28-0!  And when you go back to the season before, the Falcons have won 36 straight regular season games! Unreal - truly unreal.  However, tonight that streak comes to an end.  The Falcons play well but fall in a surprisingly low scoring game: 17-7 and the Titans even the recent series out at 8-6.

Before The Faithful fall off their chairs please remember this - I call it like I see it AND the last time I predicted a St. Albert loss was the last regular season game of 2010 against Logan-Magnolia at home - the Falcons won that game in the last minute 34-27.

Also, in my prediction last week in which I predicted a 38-7 win (it was 41-7) I predicted some guys would play well in certain spots.  I failed to mention or predict that Isaac Finn would get carries - he had 2 touchdowns and was our Cutler-O'Neill & Scott Street Pub Offensive Player of the Game.  I also didn't mention some guys on the line & in special teams that ended up being bigtime contributors.  Guys like Trae Tietsort, Nick Golwitzer & Jackson Scott-Brown.

Finally, the Falcons should have Joe Eickholt back tonight in the trenches & that should be huge for SA.

Remember Faithful... Lewis Central may have turf but St. Albert has titles.

Charlie Narmi
stalbertsportsfan.com Volunteer
St. Albert Alumni President

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