New coaches, new turf highlight Bucks County area high school football this season

There's nothing wrong with a little football talk in July.

Heck, the season starts next month (Aug. 25 is opening night) and many are counting the days until the opening kickoff.

So let's clean out the notebook (yes, a notebook with real paper and a smudgy pen) and see what's going on around the area.

From the ground up at Central Bucks West

They won't all end up at Central Bucks West playing for the head coach Rob Rowan, but a lot of them will. That's why having 230 youngsters at the recent CB West summer football camp bodes well for the future.

"It's exhausting, but it helps the kids, and it helps our program," Rowan said. "And to get those kinds of numbers is great. You love to see that."

There's a reason Rowan, who is going into his sixth season leading the Bucks and has a loaded team returning after a season in which they went to the PIAA District One Class 6A final, is on the radar of every athletic director in the area when he/she has a head coach opening.

He builds a program, not a team, and has built a really good one at West, which knows a thing or two about success on the football field.

Home turf for Pennsbury

After playing just two home games last season — one at the end of the regular season and one in the PIAA District One Class 6A playoffs — Pennsbury will be glad to return to some normalcy this season.

"We put in a new stadium last year and will be adding a synthetic field, new track and scoreboard this season," Pennsbury head coach Galen Snyder said.

High school football questions: Ten burning questions heading into 2023 season

"We look forward to playing more games at Falcon Field this fall."

Despite playing "home" games at Harry S. Truman, the Falcons still went 9-2 and won the Suburban One League National Conference title.

Speaking of new fields, Neshaminy's stadium complex also received a makeover with new bleachers, track and artificial turf field that, along with other improvements, were installed and are ready to go for the new football season.

Plenty of new faces

Area teams took a page from the NFL as a litany of new faces have taken over as head coaches across the Bucks/Montco area.

Take a look: Morrisville names former Conwell-Egan, Bensalem assistant Cohen to lead football program

In the Courier Times/Intelligencer coverage area alone, there are seven new head coaches.

They are:

Abington: Terrence Tolbert.

George School: MacAdoo Harrison-Dixon.

Harry S. Truman: Cordero Newkirk.

Hatboro-Horsham: Tom Butts.

Morrisville: Mitch Cohen.

Pennridge: Kyle Beller.

William Tennent: Colin Leach.

Milestones in reach

La Salle College High needs just four wins to reach 600 in school history. The Explorers are playing their usual nasty schedule, but they'll reach the milestone and then some.

Neshaminy enters the season with 581 all-time wins and although the team can't get to 19 victories this fall, a big dent should be put in that number.

Mount Carmel of District Four is the state's all-time leader in wins with 890, a staggering number.

A big loss for Archbishop Wood

Former Archbishop Wood offensive lineman Kevin Heywood, who transferred to Pope John Paul for his upcoming senior season, committed to Wisconsin.

The 6-foot-7, 295-pounder also had offers from Alabama, Notre Dame, Penn State, Southern Cal and many, many others.

Prep still team to beat

Saint Joseph's Prep is ranked No. 11 in the country by MaxPreps in its way too early preseason rankings.

The Hawklets have won four of the last five PIAA Class 6A titles and are heavily favored to win it all again come December behind senior quarterback Samaj Jones, who just committed to the University of Cincinnati.

Speaking of the rankings, and take nothing away from The Prep, the Hawklets are absolutely loaded once again, but how do you rank high school football teams on a national level?

The answer is you can't.

You can try, and plenty of folks make some scratch off of trying to do it, but unless there is a giant, nationwide tournament of state champions playing each other in December, it's all guess work.

Check it out: High school football: Check out the Courier Times/Intelligencer all-area team

Drew Markol: dmarkol@theintell.com; @dmarkol

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: High school football news for upcoming season around Bucks County area