The start of 3a football seems to be right around the corner with summer practices starting up. This season seems to have a lot more what if’s rather than a favorite to win a State Championship.

However, a few teams that should be good again in 2019 are Rainier, Amity, Clatskanie and, Nyssa, Madras, and Hidden Valley. These schools are all teams that should be competing for league championships this fall.

In our opinion, Special District 1 West will once again be labeled the hardest league in 3a with Powerhouse Rainier and Amity looking to battle it out for the league title, but don’t forget about Clatskanie as they return a good portion of players that made it to the Quarterfinals in 2018.

This season it seems 3a has a lot of unproven teams that have potential but are still unknown as if they will have a breakout year or be mediocre once again, those teams are (St Marys, Brookings-Harbor, Yamhill-Carlton, Hidden Valley).

In recent years going into the season most people know who the favorites will be, but this year its more wait and see as the weeks go on to figure out who will be the big dogs of 3a football in 2019. In the next post, we will predict who we think will win each league and who might win Offensive and Defensive player of the year and give a detailed description of why we picked them.

With the football season approaching quickly most teams already have started regular practices and some teams such as Scio, St Mary’s Medford,Dayton and Santiam Christian all attended camp Astoria last week. From what I have heard only SC, and St Mary’s played each other in a live scrimmage during the four day camp.

Starting with Dayton from Camp Astoria, from what I have heard and what I watched on the small amount of film I was able to receive from the camp Dayton has some speed and a lot of size this season. They have a quick Quarter-back that is new to the role but is fast and will get better throughout the next month. Dayton also had a competitive scrimmage with David Douglas a struggling 6a team later in the week.

Next, We will discuss St Mary’s- They arrived in Astoria a day before most teams primarily on how far away they live from Astoria. The first day they played 7 on 7 vs Sc and beat them by a few scores. Later the next day Sc and St Mary’s played a real scrimmage and from what I have heard Sc won by four scores in the 12-13 play scrimmage. However, after this lose they improved throughout the week and beat up on quality opponents at a camp that had about 17 different teams in attendance. St Mary’s will return a very good group of seniors with a quality Qb. At this camp St Mary’s improved and most likely will keep on improving before their first game against Amity.

Next, We will discuss Scio’s Camp Astoria efforts. The one thing about Scio this year is they have a lot more kids this year then they did last season. Scio has a few quality lineman and one good running back that stood out. During this week they impressed people and played with the bigger schools.

Next, We will discuss Santiam Christian’s Camp Astoria efforts. The first day they struggled and were getting beat in 7-7’s but after that they improved, the now Sophomore QB is more confident and the wr’s and rb’s look better from a year ago. The one noticeable thing that needs improvement will be the defensive line and linebackers. Overall Sc had a quality camp, but they did have two days that they didn’t play very well and they need to be more consistent if they want to make a splash in 2019.