Week 2 of the Class A high school football season is behind us. We now return you to your regular programming.

Really, is there a less anticipated, less memorable, less buzzworthy week of the football season? The crossover games pitting the Pine Tree Conference against the Southern Maine Activities Association (Eastern and Western A) don’t exactly put a fire in the belly of football fans around the state.

Here’s hoping that this two-year compromise goes the way of the open tournament.

Two years ago, the two leagues agreed to play one crossover game a year. That’s when Class A had to absorb four new teams, Mt. Ararat, Windham, Scarborough and Kennebunk. Originally, only Mt. Ararat was slated to go east and the other three west, but both conferences didn’t want to have bye weeks in their schedules, so the teams were split up evenly, two apiece, with Windham joining Mt. Ararat in the PTC.

Windham wasn’t pining for the Pine Tree Conference, however, and agreed to move to Eastern Maine on the condition of the crossover games being played.

For geography and travel purposes, the PTC South was paired with the SMAA’s York County division, the PTC North with the SMAA’s Intown Division. From there, the matchups were drawn out of a hat.

The format was drawn up by a quartet of athletic directors who gave it a two-year window because they anticipated the declining enrollment in Eastern Maine and the increasing number of programs throughout the state to dramatically change the football landscape by next season. And, what do you know, Waterville will be moving down to Class B, and it looks like Gorham could be moving up to Class A.

That’s a nice one-for-one swap. Under that scenario, we can send Windham back west and be done with the crossovers.

I’m a bit of a pessimist, though. That’s a little too clean. Something’s gonna gum up the works. Who knows what. An unforeseen population explosion in Waterville, perhaps, or maybe a mass exodus from Gorham (they sure could use the traffic relief down there).

Whatever it is, if we do indeed end up with an odd number of teams in one conference or if Windham has to stay in the PTC, I, on behalf of football fans all over the state and a lot of coaches and players, am begging the powers that be to stop the crossover madness.

Under the current format, Week 2 is a big letdown from Week 1. You go from big crowds and pumped up players and all of the electricity of a season opener to what might as well be an exhibition game, for all the excitement, or lack thereof, the crossovers generate.

I was in Westbrook Friday night for the Mt. Blue-Westbrook game. Mt. Blue dominated the game even though the players and coaches themselves admitted that they came out flat from the start.

You might ask yourself “How can a team come out flat for its second game of the season?” Well, it’s pretty easy if:

1) The crowd is dead. If not for a fairly vociferous Mt. Blue contingent, Olmsted Field would have been a morgue Friday night.

2) Your opponent is a mediocre, vanilla football team that you feel nothing but indifference for.

The bottom line is, Mt. Blue wouldn’t have been flat if they’d been facing, say, Oxford Hills this week.

Unfortunately, these crossover games count in both league’s standings, making up one-eighth of the schedule. Therefore, a loss Friday night or yesterday to a team that no one else in their own conference plays may cost someone a higher seed and a home game in the playoffs, if not deny them a playoff spot altogether.

Which brings us back to the randomness of these matchups. How would you like to be Cony this morning, licking your wounds from a ferocious beating at the hands of defending state champion Deering while knowing that Mt. Blue, a team you may have to beat out for a playoff spot or seeding at the end of the season, got to feast on Westbrook the night before? You may be sitting at home in November while your conference rival keeps playing, and it could be because of when your school was drawn out of a hat.

Ironically, the matchups have been fairly competitive overall. Because Western A has dominated the state championship for so long, many expected it to dominate Week 2. The PTC held its own last year, winning six of the 14 matchups, and actually held a 6-4 edge this year on Friday night before the West swept Saturday’s games. Half of the Friday games were decided by 10 points or less.

Edward Little may have gotten a much-needed boost of confidence from their 25-13 win over Sanford. I seriously doubt, however, that Brunswick will be looking back on their 14-6 win over Thornton Academy as the high point of the year. And for every EL or Brunswick, there’s an Oxford Hills or Lewiston faced with just six games to dig itself out of that much deeper of a hole because they lost to a non-conference opponent this week.

Thankfully, it’s back to knockdown, drag out intraconference football next week. The schedule looks pretty good. Mt. Blue will be playing Bangor next week and I’m kind of pumped up about it. In fact, I’m going to ask my boss to send me up the Turnpike to cover it right now.

Somehow, I think the Cougars will find a way to get pumped up for that game, too.

Randy Whitehouse is a staff writer who can be reached at [email protected]