Here is my All-Metro Team for 2009. This is for players in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties. 2009 All-Metro Team
First Team Offense
QB Jason Fracassa Sterling Heights Stevenson Senior
RB Austin White Livonia Stevenson Senior
RB Jeremy Langford Westland Glenn Senior
RB Niko Palazeti Detroit Catholic Central Senior
WR Kevonte Martin-Manley Birmingham Brother Rice Senior
WR D.J. Mershman Sterling Heights Stevenson Senior
WR Cameron Fields West Bloomfield Senior
TE Tyronne Freeman Highland Park Senior
OL Jeff Sherman Detroit Catholic Central Senior
OL Trevor Wiitanen Macomb Dakota Senior
OL Corey Stone Sterling Heights Stevenson Senior
OL Sterlin Griffin Inkster Senior
OL Carter Staffield Canton Senior
K Mason Krysinski Utica Eisenhower Senior
P Brent Regish Farmington Hills Harrison Senior
ATH Edward Thomas Detroit Southeastern Senior
First Team Defense
DL William Gholston Detroit Southeastern Senior
DL Carl Davis Sterling Heights Stevenson Senior
DL C.J. Olanlyan Warren Mott Senior
DL DeMarcus Murray Highland Park Junior
DL Johathon Hankins Detroit Southeastern Senior
LB Justin Cherocci Birmingham Brother Rice Senior
LB Nores Fradi Dearborn Senior
LB Michael Padula Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Senior
LB Maurice Davenport Southfield Senior
DB Mylan Hicks Detroit Renaissance Senior
DB Dior Mathis Detroit Cass Tech Senior
DB Wayne Pettus Melvindale Senior
DB Gary Hunter Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Senior
Second Team Offense
QB Devin Gardner Inkster Senior
RB Ben Brown Romeo Senior
RB Dakota Bender Clarkston Senior
RB Aaron Bailey Brownstown Woodhaven Senior
RB Paris Powell Detroit Southeastern Senior
WR Marcus Beuram Sterling Heights Stevenson Senior
WR Bacquer Sayed Dearborn Fordson Senior
WR Jonathon Taylor Inkster Senior
TE Dakota Dark-Bird Canton Senior
OL Bernard Taylor Macomb Dakota Junior
OL Jauther Jackson Inkster Senior
OL Matt Priebe Plymouth Senior
OL Chris Elliot Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Senior
OL Nick DeMiro Rochester Adams Senior
K Robert Flinn Romeo Senior
P Aaron Berthet Utica Ford Junior
ATH Daniel Easterly Detroit Cass Tech Senior
Second Team Defense
DL Steve O’Shell Warren DeLaSalle Senior
DL Joe Wirth Utica Eisenhower Senior
DL Joe Snyder Detroit Catholic Central Senior
DL Taylor Calero Southfield Christian Senior
DL Jordan Sanders Rochester Adams Senior
LB Austin Gray Warren Fitzgerald Senior
LB Michael Kinville Detroit Catholic Central Senior
LB D.J. Lynch Auburn Hills Avondale Senior
LB Tim Hamilton Birmingham Brother Rice Junior
DB Tim Zabawa Warren DeLaSalle Senior
DB Robert Wunderlich Troy Senior
DB Nate Saldivar-Garcia Birmingham Brother Rice Senior
DB Ryan Spicuzzi Macomb Dakota Senior
Honorable Mention Offense
QB Robert Bolden Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Senior
QB Tyler Scarlett Clarkston Senior
QB Josh Harris Detroit Country Day Junior
QB Frankie Popp Birmingham Brother Rice Senior
RB Kim Bruce Lake Orion Senior
RB D’Angelo Parris Warren DeLaSalle Senior
RB Terrance Stevens Inkster Senior
RB Brandon Hughes Macomb Dakota Senior
RB Tommie Watkins Grosse Pointe North Senior
RB Edwin Limmitt Warren Fitzgerald Senior
RB D’Aevon Robinson Southfield Sophomore
RB Justice Wright Sterling Heights Stevenson Senior
RB Jimmy Pickens Birmingham Brother Rice Junior
RB Alex Koski Grosse Pointe South Senior
RB Anthony Capatina Detroit Catholic Central Senior
WR Martez Kelly Warren Mott Senior
WR Vorheese Zenders Inkster Senior
WR Jerome Hosley Highland Park Senior
WR Aaron Burbridge Farmington Hills Harrison Sophomore
OL Sean Grisan Birmingham Brother Rice Senior
OL Alex Dixon Canton Senior
OL Mike Still Detroit Catholic Central Senior
OL Matt Privett Warren DeLaSalle Senior
K David Marris Farmington Hills Harrison Senior
P Dan Green Macomb Lutheran North Senior
ATH Ben Fillimon Warren Mott Senior
ATH Tony Lippett Detroit Crockett Senior
ATH Montel Robinson Southfield Lathrup Senior
Honorable Mention Defense
DL Jeff Dean Clarkston Senior
DL Conor Hart Birmingham Brother Rice Junior
DL Quean Smith Highland Park Junior
DL Levi Richards III Birmingham Brother Rice Junior
LB Earnest Thomas Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Senior
LB Shane McCain Warren DeLaSalle Senior
LB Ishmail Thomas Detroit Renaissance Senior
LB James Ross Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Sophomore
LB Butch Herzog Detroit Catholic Central Senior
DB Lanier Logan Highland Park Senior
DB Jason Ray Detroit Country Day Senior
Wow!! These lists are always so tough to put together. I believe you did a very good job. Where do you get most of your information/how do you make decisions on all of these players?
Prep, you did a great job. I think your picks are both fair and objective.
Yup… hard to put this together… but somehow the kicker over at Plymouth HS is slipping under the radar. He’s something else.
Looks like Kevin Harmon at Southfield is slipping under the radar as well…. 18 sacks and not even honorable mention.
Thanks for the comments. Yes, this is the hardest thing I do on my site. It’s a lot easier to to Top 25 Rankings and Game Picks.
In answer to diesel’s questions above, I prefer to list players that I have personally seen. But, that is impossible. It does,however, account for the particular skew toward the CHSL, teams that CHSL teams played and other key teams. Those are the teams/players I am most familar with. But, we all know there are a lot of good players that don’t fall into that group. I try to find them by doing a lot of research–media game reports. school web site game recaps, Maxpreps stats leaderboard, Rivals and Scout ratings, M-Live comments, word-of-mouth, media pre-season player rankings.
It would be a lot easier if I waited until the media and the leagues published their honor teams. Then, I could just cherry-pick the ones I like. That’s not a challenge. I’d rather do my own, even if I risk a mistake or an oversight. In past years, I have included players, mostly linemen, who were highly-rated pre-season, but had an early season-ending injury and didn’t play, or even quit the team before the season. Linemen are the most difficult to evaluate, particularly from teams I haven’t seen. Even when I see a team, it’s hard to evaluate linemen. I’m sure the media teams are made up primarily of nominees from coaches, who of course know their linemen best.
When it comes down to picking between player A and B, it helps to have seen both. It helps to have seen both multiple times. Case in point. I did not rank Earnest Thomas, #7 OLSM very high (Honorable Mention). A 4 star recruit that committed to UCLA and had multiple offers from major schools would normally be a no-brainer. If I had not seen that individual, he probably would have made my first team. But, I’ve seen Thomas at least ten times over two years. I’m sorry. I have not been impressed. I was a lot more impressed with Gary Hunter. Robert Bolden got an Honorable Mention pick. He got that more on potential and previous play rather than this year, although I understand he was better in games that I didn’t see. Bolden looked like an ordinary QB in the games I saw. Ordinary QBs normally don’t make my team–even Honorable Mention. But, he was such a high profile player for three years that I felt he deserved at least an HM spot.
There will be criticisms from some who say there are too many Brother Rice players on my team. I am sensitive to those comments, so I actually try to overcompensate and make sure anyone from Rice that gets a mention, really derserves it. Like many elite teams, Rice has a lot of great players. Because I follow Rice very closely, I happen to be aware of the great ones, and I usually put them on–at least for HM. However, I left a couple real good players off this year from Rice that were probably worthy. Of course, I left a few pretty good CC and DLS players off as well. I don’t think I overloaded with players from any team this year.
In addition to linemen, it’s hard to find all the worthy kickers. Statman points out the kicker from Plymouth. I wish I had known about him earlier. I would have reseached him and made a more informed call.
I’m going to try to live with the group as initially published. If someone points out an obvious oversight, e.g. a player who didn’t play this year. I’ll do an edit. I have been known to add a player or two who was really worthy but just got overlooked. It’s done on a case-by-case basis.
One of the sources I use is Maxpreps. They do a great leaderboard in a number of offense, defense and special teams categories. Unfortunately, all teams do not submit stats to Maxpreps. Players on teams that do submit stats probably get an advantage when being evaluated for my team.
bluejay,
Yea, Harmon looks good, but maybe just below the threashold. I saw that he was on the Oakland Press Pre-Season Top 75 player list. He was in the 51-75 group, so I guess he could have been anywhere from 51 to 75. There were only three players from that group that made my team. Not all the players in the 1-50 group made the team. I suspect that there are probably a lot of players like Harmon who just missed the team. Either not enough publicity. Stats not published. Not being recruited. Or, a combination of all three. Plus, I haven’t seen Southfield this year. I did see Southfield last year–three times. As a result, I had several BlueJays on my team.
Prepseer,
At least your honest, about not seeing everyone, and trying to use what you have, so I can understand your logic. Harmon was not at Southfield last year, as he lead the PSL in sacks with 19 at Henry Ford and was first team all PSL. IMO that is part of the reason the OP had him ranked so low, they assumed some drop off would take place leaving the PSL. You would be hard pressed to find that kind of 2 year production from many…again, its your list, and I believe that you do the best that you can.
bluejay,
that explains a lot. Harmon was definitely under the radar because of his situation. Good luck to him getting a chance at the next level.
Farmington Hills Harrison’s Kicker only kicked for the first 4 or 5 games. Had injury and replaced by Steven Stepek (Jr.) and Michael Rubenstein (Sr).
Thanks, OAA,
He must have had some pretty good stats in those 4 or 5 games because that’s how I selected him. I’ll have to check it out. Although it has happened before, usually I don’t select someone who missed half the season (e.g. Rice’s Michael Brown), even though he might have otherwise made it.
I’d have to say Rubenstein and Stepek had a better season than Morris, he did good, but didn’t play like those two. Rubenstein’s leg is just amazing and Stepek has tons of upside as a junior.
PREPSEER
SORRY I DIDNT GET BACK WITH YOU I HAVENT BEEN ON IN A FEW DAYS, ANYWAYS YOU KNOW I DONT AGREE WITH YOUR FIRST TEAM PICK FOR QB BUT THATS YOUR OPINION AND WHY WASNT NICK HILL THE CHELSEA RB EVEN MENTION ON YOUR HONORABLE MENTION LIST NICK HILL IS THE TRUTH AND I THINK HE IS THE SECOND BEST BACK IN MICHIGAN
jjohnson,
I was hoping to have heard from you before publishing the team. I didn’t have an Inkster roster and there were few detailed game reports available. I saw them at the scrimmage, but again didn’t have a roster. Was I OK on the players selected? The linemen? I almost put the Twins that transferred from Taylor Truman, but couldn’t find anything at all on them. I didn’t want to put them on simply for the pre-season hype.
As for Gardner, I did know him well. He’s obviously a better college prospect than Fracassa, but if you’ve ever seen Fracassa play, it would be hard to argue against his pick on a high school honor team. This is not a Blue-Chip List, but a h.s. honor team. He was the best player on the best team in the state wire-to-wire.
Nick Hill wasn’t on the team because it was only for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb county.
Here is some simple math that brings your selections and placements into question. Brother Rice’s defense gave up 182 points during the season and you named 1 first team player, 2 second team and 2 Honorable Mention. OLSM has 2 first team and 1 Honorable Mention giving up 125 points. Warren DeLasalle’s defense gave up 90 points with 2 second team picks and one Honorable Mention. Catholic Central gives up 23 points on defense, thru the Catholic League Championchip Game and ends up with the same number of players, 2 second team and one Honorable Mention, as DeLaSalle ?17 points allowed against 3 teams (4 games) that are still in the running for the state title in their respective divisions!
And just for fun, get your hands on Anthony Capatina’s films from the last three games…Austin who?
snyder jerry,
There’s no such thing as simple math when it comes to picking an All-Metro Team–or any other honor team for that matter. This is based on individual, not team performances. While, I don’t dispute your math, I will say that it’s irrelevant. There are too many variables. Do you know how many points were scored against the teams mentioned when 2nd and 3rd string players were on the field. Did you comapare the strength of the opponents of each of the teams. You can’t make a simple comparison of team defensive stats and then pick players from those teams for the Honor Teams. If that were the case, you would have many more players, who may not be deserving, repdresenting teams that happened to play great defense as a team and maybe they played that great defense and recored those great stats against inferior teams.
As for Capatina, I’ve seen him play at least ten times. I’ve got him where I think he belongs. Now, if you want to talk about players I have on the team who I haven’t seen play, let me know. It’s possible I’ve made a mistake on some.
Feel free to do your own team. I would be curious to see who you would put on from CC, OLSM and DLS that I didn’t mention and who you would take off from BBR.
FYI: The spelling of one of the OL is spelled wrong with the first offense. Should be Wiitanen, not Wittanen (Trevor) from Dakota.
Hey thanks for fixing the spelling error, and good job on the picks… nicely done.