Fulmore, Wheeler breakout players ..... Where NFL QBs played

Some things that fell off my laptop

After the first two weeks of the football season, I say North Catholic's P.J. Fulmore and West Mifflin's Jimmy Wheeler are the WPIAL breakout players of the year.

Both played very little last year - and that was understandable. Fulmore was only a freshman and Wheeler only a sophomore. All of a sudden, they have turned into two of the WPIAL's leading rushers.

Wheeler rushed for 342 yards against Belle Vernon last Friday. Fulmore has 418 yards in two games. Look for both to keep having big games.

State rankings

Here are the Post-Gazette's latest state rankings:
CLASS AAAA - 1. North Allegheny 2-0. 2. La Salle College 2-0. 3. Central Dauphin 1-1. 4. Easton 2-0. 5. Gateway 2-0
CLASS AAA - 1. Bishop McDevitt 2-0. 2. Cathedral Prep 2-0. 3. Archbishop Wood 1-1. 4. Montour 2-0. 5. Berwick 2-0
CLASS AA - 1. Aliquippa    2-0. 2. Mount Carmel 2-0. 3. Wyomissing 2-0. 4. South Fayette 2-0. 5. Imhotep Charter 2-0
CLASS A - 1. Clairton 2-0. 2. Southern Columbia 2-0. 3. Dunmore 2-0. 4. Rochester 2-0. 5. Sto-Rox  2-0.

The Pennsylvania Football News also is out with its latest state rankings.

Where NFL QBs come from

Maxpreps.com did an interesting study recently on where the starting quarterbacks in the NFL attended high school. Not surprisingly, Texas and California were first and second on the list with eight and six, respectively. Pennsylvania and four other states were tied for third with two each. Pennsylvania starters in the NFL are Houston's Matt Schaub (West Chester East) and Atlanta's Matt Ryan (Penn Charter)

Brothers meet

Bruce Gradkowski and brother, Gino Gradkowski, got some love from the announcers on TV during Monday Night Football. Bruce plays for the Bengals and Gino for the Ravens. I'm researching how many times brothers from the WPIAL have played against each other in a game. I will tell you only a few times. I'm not done researching and I'll have all of them in Friday's paper.

I'm just sayin'

* It makes you wonder if Neil Gordon knew what was coming when he decided to get out as Shaler's football coach after last season. The Titans are 0-2 and gave up 60 points this past week to Butler, a team that hadn't won a conference game since 2006. In the past four years, Butler hadn't scored 60 points in a season's worth of conference games.

* It's nice to see some excitement around Hempfield football for once. The Spartans are 2-0 and I heard the students rushed the field after beating Latrobe last week.

* South Fayette QB Brett Brumbaugh has eight touchdown passes and almost 500 yards in the first two games - and hasn't thrown a pass in the second half yet. That's because Brumbaugh is good and because South Fayette has been nice to opponents in the second half of blowouts.

* Varsity Xtra's latest version of "This Week In High School Sports" has hit our web site. Terry Shields and I break down the top games and talk about some other things. It's must-see TV.