PA HS Football Rivalries Part 1

One of the top experts on Pennsylvania High School Football visits the Pigpen to talk about some of the top rivalries in the state. In part one of our chat we look at Easton vs. Phillipsburg, NJ as well as the battles between Governor Mifflin High vs. Wilson High School.

The Pennsylvania Football History expert from PAFBHISTORY.com is the man with the plan when it comes to collecting data about high school football history in the Commonwealth of PA. He has tapped into Dr. Roger Saylor, the legendary gridiron historian from Penn State, combed through Newspapers.com for tidbits and continues to gather photos, stats, and stories from experts around the country on PA High School Pigskin. The Historian's social media presence is strong especially in the Twitter-sphere, @pa_fb_history. He placed a recent question on Twitter about what people believe the biggest Pennsylvania High School rivalries are. The response was overwhelming and we were lucky to get a chance to sit down with him to go over some of the most talked-about answers to his posted question. They are in no particular ranked order and just a random sampling of some of the more popular ones. This is such good stuff that we are going to break our conversation into multiple parts so that the rivalries don't get lost in the shuffle, and the appreciation of each and the value they bring to all of football can be appreciated.

In Part 1 of the breakdown, we focussed on two BIG Eastern PA Annual match-ups.

Easton High School versus Phillipsburg High School, New Jersey

Okay, we know that one team is not from PA, but the schools are not far from each other and a geographical line on a map doesn't quench the adrenaline rush that the players and fans get to look forward to this annual contest. Traditionally is played on Thanksgiving mornings throughout history.  In fact it is noted as one of the longest running interstate Turkey Day games going at the scholastic level, started in 1905. These two rivals from different states have met an amazing 114 times as of November 2021. The Pennsylvania school scored a last-minute TD to win the contest 7-3. In the 2021 game, Easton earned its sixth straight victory over P’burg, which is the longest winning streak in series history. The Rovers finish the season at 6-4 while the Stateliners dropped to 7-5. Easton High is the second most winningest football program in the Commonwealth.
Easton now holds a 67-42-5 advantage vs. the Stateliners. To get the rest of the details on this one hear what the PA Football History Expert adds in the podcast above.

Governor Mifflin vs. Wilson

The second Keystone State Scholastic rivalry that our historian expert wanted to chat about brings us back within the Commonwealth borders and is the powerhouses of Governor Mifflin Mustangs versus the Wilson Bulldog Football team. These two perennial powers from the towns of Shillington ( Governor Mifflin) and West Lawn (Wilson) have a long-standing healthy competitive relationship as well. The sit about 3 miles away from each other in the Reading, PA area have produced some great players and some epic contests to remember. The Keystone Gridiron Guru breaks this classic matchup down in the podcast too letting us in on why so many responded to it being one of the top all-time Pennsylvania football rivalries.
Stay tuned as we will run more of this great conversation each couple of days over the next week, covering more great high school gridiron traditional match-ups and how they make PA Football so special.

The banner photo is of 1936 - Allentown Vs Easton Football Program - Nov 7, 1936 - Allentown PA. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: Newspapers.com, PAFBHISTORY.com and Penn State Digital archives.