HS Football predictions: Make it 32 in a row Thanksgiving games for me

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/ FROM KEITH GROLLER Happy Thanksgiving. Today marks the 32nd consecutive Thanksgiving that I'm covering a high school football game. You have your tradition, I have mine and mine is to struggle to get up early, scramble to a game and then somehow fit in a dinner either before I do a game story, or right after. It's one of my favorite traditions, frankly. Of the approximate 450 high school games I've covered in my career, these 31 may be my favorite. And my tradition is to cover the Northampton-Catty rivalry. For me, this will be No. 21 in the series between the Roughies and K-Kids coming up at Catty's Alumni Field today. Should be a good one, too. Some people think the only game that matters today is Easton-P'burg, but because my late grandmother was a Northampton grad, Class of 1934, and because I also had an uncle who had a store on Race Street in Catty, this is the Thanksgiving Day rivalry that I kind of grew up with -- this one and Allen-Dieruff, of course. There was one year, 1989, when snow postponed the Allen-Dieruff game I was supposed to cover on Thursday morning. I still did a story on the postponement, and then covered the game the next day in the afternoon on Black Friday So, I guess it's technically not 32 straight games covered on this holiday, but 32 Thanksgiving football stories I've done and 32 straight years of covering games that were at least supposed to be played on Thanksgiving. Here's a list of the Thanksgiving Day games I've covered and the final scores with home teams underlined: 1981 -- Souderton 34, Upper Perk 21. 1982: Souderton 7, Upper Perk 6. 1983: Pennridge 20, Quakertown 0. 1984: Catasauqua 21, Northampton 7 1985: Dieruff 12, Allen 0. 1986: Dieruff 12, Allen 6. 1987: Allen 9, Dieruff 7 1988: Allen 8, Dieruff 7 1989: Dieruff 14, Allen 6 1990: Allen 21, Dieruff 0 1991: Catasauqua 35, Northampton 7 1992: Emmaus 14, Whitehall 6 1993: Northampton 26, Catasauqua 13. 1994: Northampton 17, Catasauqua 7. 1995: Catasauqua 35, Northampton 0 1996: Catasauqua 19, Northampton 14 1997: Northampton 24, Catasauqua 6 1998: Northampton 41, Catasauqua 0 1999: Northampton 35, Catasauqua 13 2000: Catasauqua 28, Northampton 19 2001: Northampton 18, Catasauqua 12 (OT) 2002: Catasauqua 21, Northampton 6 2003: Northampton 34, Catasauqua 7 2004: Northampton 22, Catasauqua 6 2005: Northampton 21, Catasauqua 13 2006: Easton 21, Phillipsburg 7 2007: Northampton 41, Catasauqua 7 2008: Northampton 19, Catasauqua 0 2009: Northampton 28, Catasauqua 7 2010: Northampton 22, Catasauqua 17 2011: Catasauqua 20, Northampton 6 As for what to expect today in our four area games, I'd say two blowouts and two tossups. First of all, I was 4-2 with the picks last week, leaving me at 189-56 (77.1 percent) for the season. Today's games: Easton 34, Phillipsburg 14 -- It has been a disappointing ending to what started out as such a promising season for the Red Rovers. They got off track with those suspensions and never seemed to get it all together. Then some injuries, particularly to Shane Simpson, have really been too tough to overcome. I look for Easton to put it all together one last time today against a Phillipsburg squad that has struggled. Pennridge 35, Quakertown 0: The Rams are a state title contender. Their mission today is to bury the Panthers as fast as possible and then turn all of their attention to Saturday's state game against a very strong Spring-Ford team. Stroudsburg 24, ES South 21: The first meeting between these two was a 31-28 thriller won by the Mounties back in Week 3 of the season. There's no reason to expect one side or the other to pull away. Stroudsburg has just been a little more consistent, plays better defense and has Altarique Mosley on offense. Northampton 35, Catasauqua 28: Of all the games I've covered in this series, this one has the potential to be the best because of the offensive firepower on both sides. It'll be interesting to see how the Roughies respond after that bitterly disappointing loss to Pen Argyl. Had they won that game, it would have been interesting to see if they had gone all-out in this one. We'll never know. What we do know is that this has been a special season for the Roughies, and they may be just as good next year. The K-Kids, too, have enough key guys coming back to make 2013 sound exciting.