It was No. 1 against No. 2 last Friday night, and No. 1 prevailed as Fayetteville posted a 43-33 victory over North Little Rock.
We’ll leave Fayetteville in the No. 1 spot in this week’s rankings while dropping the Charging Wildcats to No. 7.
Teams on the rise include Conway following a 49-28 victory over Jonesboro and Fort Smith Northside (the Bear has come out of hibernation along Rogers Avenue) following a 32-8 win over Little Rock Central.
Greenwood remains the class of Class 6A with strong challenges expected from Lake Hamilton and Pine Bluff. And keep an eye on Texarkana, which finds itself 2-0 against Texas competition (wins over Texas High and Liberty-Eylau).
Class 5A is crowded at the top. Wynne, Batesville, Greenbrier and Pulaski Academy are capable of winning the state title. Pulaski Academy was particularly impressive with a 52-20 win on the road in Florida over New Smyrna Beach.
The boys in orange — Nashville and Warren — find themselves in the top two positions in Class 4A.
Charleston stays atop Class 3A following a 42-6 victory over Gentry, but Booneville takes a tumble after a surprising 28-0 loss at the hands of the Dardanelle Sand Lizards.
In Class 2A, it’s all Junction City. The game with Rison is usually a good one. Not this time. The Dragons beat Rison, 48-8, last Friday.
Here are the rankings after two weeks of the high school football season:
Overall
1. Fayetteville
2. Conway
3. Greenwood
4. Wynne
5. Fort Smith Northside
6. Cabot
7. North Little Rock
8. Lake Hamilton
9. Batesville
10. Greenbrier
Class 7A
1. Fayetteville
2. Conway
3. Fort Smith Northside
4. Cabot
5. North Little Rock
Class 6A
1. Greenwood
2. Lake Hamilton
3. Pine Bluff
4. Texarkana
5. Jonesboro
Class 5A
1. Wynne
2. Batesville
3. Greenbrier
4. Pulaski Academy
5. Camden Fairview
Class 4A
1. Nashville
2. Warren
3. Dollarway
4. Star City
5. Malvern
Class 3A
1. Charleston
2. Lamar
3. Prescott
4. Smackover
5. Booneville
Class 2A
1. Junction City
2. Bearden
3. East Poinsett County
4. Hazen
5. England
You better stick to writing about and ranking BBQ! NLR #7 now that’s funny.
So I take it you think they are still ranked too high, Brian, based on the fact that they struggled for three quarters against a Catholic team that was blown out in its next game, followed by a double-digit loss.
seriously, brian? NLR shouldn’t be ranked in the top 10 at this point. i was at the game last friday night in fayetteville and sat on the NLR side as i have deep roots in NLR. i have never seen a more disorganized mess in my life as i witnessed on the NLR sideline. besides having far less talent than fayetteville, the biggest obstacle looking NLR in the eye is a lack of discipline. i also noticed that NLR never once challenged the big tight end (cj o’grady #15) as he came off the ball. he ran his patterns with ease and with much success. fayetteville also had a running back who couldn’t have been over 5’8 and 150 pounds who ran all over the NLR defense. NLR had better figure out a way to get the ball to k.j. hill. the very average NLR quarterback (and to make things worse he is left-handed) didn’t have time to set up and pass the ball to kj and NLR finally resorted to putting kj in the backfield so they could hand him the ball and on occasion, snapped the ball directly to him. you have to find a way to get the ball into the hands of your only true star player. the NLR defensive backfield has the same problem the razorback defensive backfield has…no players. the game wouldn’t have been close had it not been for the fumble NLR picked up and ran for a touchdown (i think it was by #46 who is an impressive linebacker who should get some looks from smaller colleges) and the strip and score NLR pulled off after kicking to fayetteville. coach bolding had better pull the boys in close and explain how important discipline and teamwork are to winning a championship or NLR is in for a long season.
But NLR is great at SPARQ! Also Rex, I believe you showed about the same amount of respect to B’ville last year as you are now. I don’t think they are nearly as good (or at least not focused) as years past. They may also lose tonight, but, you may want to check out the level of competition that they play non-conference vs your other teams. So since you do not rank them at all, I assume you think that all of the teams ranked ahead would beat them?
As I explained last year, my rankings are like college rankings — they are based on performance on the field so far, not on what I expect to happen in the future. Too many people who claim to do rankings of where things stand right now are actually doing predictions of where they expect them to stand in two months. Apples and oranges. I expect Bentonville to move into the rankings and move up. By for right night, I’m not about to put an 0-2 team that just lost 34-0 in the Top 10.