5 Things to Watch: Like Al Davis said, just win, baby

The calendar has flipped to October and the high school football season enters it seventh weekend with 15 games involving local teams tonight and one Saturday afternoon.
This is a difficult time for teams and coaches. Though the playoff races are taking shape, it’s still too early for a crash course in the Gardner Point System, too soon to check point differential and not wise to look at schedules and play the what-if game.
At this point in the season, every team can simply follow the famous words of former Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis: Just win, baby.
Here are five things to watch and know this weekend:
1. Game of the Week - Washington at Sto-Rox. For the first time this season, the Class 2A Century Conference will have one team alone at the top of the standings. Will it be Washington (2-0, 5-1), which is a one-point loss at Serra Catholic away from being undefeated? Or will it be Sto-Rox (3-0, 3-2), which has bounced back from an 0-2 start?
And what kind of game will this be? Will it be a high-scoring affair? Sto-Rox has outscored its three conference opponents by a 140-7 margin while Washington routed its two league foes, 121-21. The Prexies have scored at least 34 points in every game.
Last week, Sto-Rox played McGuffey and both teams entered the game averaging at least 44 points per game. With everybody expecting a shootout, Sto-Rox was a 6-0 winner.
Could this be another defense-dominated game? It’s doubtful. The offenses here are too explosive.
The key matchup will be Wash High’s pass defense against Sto-Rox’s offense. The Prexies gave up 684 passing yards during a three-game stretch early in the season but have allowed only 53 through the air in conference play. Sto-Rox quarterback Josh Jenkins has passed for 1,067 yards and his two favorite targets, Zay Davis and Drevon Miller, each average more than 20 yards per catch.
2. Coaching wins - McGuffey’s Ed Dalton has 212 career wins, which is believed to rank tied for fourth among coaches who have led at least one school in Washington County. Dalton’s wins have been accumulated at McGuffey, Trinity, Mt. Pleasant, Altoona and Purchase Line.
He is currently tied on the wins list with legendary Charleroi coach Rab Currie, who also also coached at Monessen.
Dalton can move ahead of Currie with a McGuffey win tonight at, of all places, Charleroi.
3. Monessen on the run - For the first time in more than a half century, Monessen had two running backs gain more than 200 yards in a game last week as Daevon Burke and TyVaughn Kershaw combined for 445 rushing yards and scored seven total touchdowns in a 62-25 win over West Greene that kept the Greyhounds (3-0, 4-2) tied for the Class A Tri-County South Conference lead with Mapletown.
Monessen plays tonight at Carmichaels (2-1, 4-4-2), which needs to win to stay in the title hunt. The Mikes already have one good win at home, having beaten Fort Cherry.
4. Burgettstown keeps improving - Perhaps no local team has improved as much in the last two weeks than Burgettstown. The Blue Devils started 1-2 but followed that with wins at Chartiers-Houston (14-8) and at home against Cornell (26-6). The wins have moved Burgettstown into third place in the Class A Black Hills Conference behind powerhouses Bishop Canevin and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the latter the Blue Devils’ opponent Saturday night at Moon High School.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by the Blue Devils’ recent surge. After all, undefeated South Side Beaver, one of the teams that have beaten Burgettstown, has allowed the fewest points (26) in Class A and more than half of those were scored by the Blue Devils.
5. No easy paths - The road to the playoffs is difficult, even with as many as five teams qualifying in some conferences. With four weeks remaining, nobody will be able to say they made the playoffs by ending the season with a schedule as soft as creampuffs. All 22 local teams have at least one game remaining against an opponent that currently sports a winning record.
Yep, you have to earn your way into the postseason.