BARNESVILLE - It doesn't get much better than the thought of football returning to the Times News area. An event that always seems to get the visions of pigskins dancing in our heads is the annual Schuylkill County Football Coaches Association Media Day.

The 11th installment of the event had a little bit of a different feel to it this year with a lot of buzz surrounding the expansion of the Anthracite Football League. Lehighton and Blue Mountain will join the AFL ranks this season with Pottsville set to join in two seasons.As usual, the coaches voted on who they thought were going to be the top teams in the AFL heading into the season and a familiar name is once again atop the polls. Perennial power North Schuylkill is picked to win the league, receiving seven first place votes.It's not much of a surprise to see the Spartans at No. 1, but a surprise to most people, except for maybe Lehighton coach Tom McCarroll is that Lehighton is picked to finish second in the AFL in just their first season in the league. The Indians received two first place votes. Rounding out the top five is Schuylkill Haven, Blue Mountain, and Marian.Tamaqua is picked to finish sixth, Jim Thorpe is flying under the radar once again at seventh, while Panther Valley under first year head coach Matt Davis is slotted in at ninth.The Jim Thorpe Olympians won the 2013 AFL Championship, finishing the season with a 7-1 league record. In last season's poll, Jim Thorpe was picked to finish seventh, meaning preseason polls are exactly just that, a "PRE"season poll."It's great for our kids to see that it doesn't matter where you're voted to end up, that you can control your own destiny and vice versa. We also didn't earn anything yet, just because we won a championship last year doesn't mean we're entitled to anything this year," said Jim Thorpe coach Mark Rosenberger. "We just have to make sure we continue to work hard and once again there is very little talk about us, so we're looking to do some positive things and make another run at it."Besides Lehighton, Marian comes in as the highest ranked Times News area team at No. 5. The Colts are always talented, but in the past few years they've run into some injury problems. Speed will once again be the name of the game for the Colts and Marian coach Stan Dakosty hopes they can use that to their advantage."We've got an experienced squad that finished strong last season and we hope to build off that," said Dakosty. "One of our strengths will be our quickness, but then you look at the schedule and you think, you better be. The key for us is to just stay healthy, if we can just keep our team on the field consistently then we have a shot. I'm sure everybody here feels the same way about that. Our guys also have to know just because you might not be starting now, doesn't mean you couldn't be starting by week seven. When your time comes you need to be ready to go and I think we do a good job of preparing our kids for that."Tamaqua is entering the season once again with a strong defensive unit, ranked sixth in the poll. The Raiders do have some questions to answer on the offensive end with the loss of explosive running back Tyler Hope and starting quarterback Nate Edmonds. So, it will be up to a group of lesser-known Raiders to make headlines this season."Unfortunately, we had some injuries early last year, so it gave some of the guys coming back a lot of opportunities to get on the field," said Tamaqua coach Sam Bonner. "Ernie Shilko is a guy that carried the ball for us a decent amount last season (44 carries), so he will be our starting tailback going into the season. We also have our entire linebacker unit back, so that will be a real strong part for us. So, we have some experience back, just maybe not the game-breaker type guys we've had in the past. These guys are all real solid football players and they now have a chance to make a name for themselves and show that maybe they can become those type of guys."Matt Davis, the new leader of the of the Panther Valley football program has been busy. His first goal was to simply improve the numbers of the program, which he did, getting about 30-35 players consistently for summer workouts and 54 players out for the team. Next up for Davis, was to get his guys to improve every single day and every single week. Obviously, that is yet to be seen, but it's interesting to see if the "hometown" Davis can get the Panther program headed in the right direction."Our first goal that we wanted to accomplish as a staff was to improve the numbers within the program and we think we did that," said Davis. "We had great participation throughout the summer, our kids worked really hard and it will definitely pay off once we put the pads on. Our goal for the season is to improve every single week, get better each and every Friday night. Overall, we want this program to be at the point where our bad years are .500 years. How quickly we can get there is how well our kids can gel and how we perform on Friday nights. We want the days of circling PV on a schedule and expecting a "W" to be over."With high school football just around the corner there is plenty to look forward to, so dust off your team hats, your seatbacks, and your player pins. This could possibly be the most competitive season the AFL has ever seen, so tune in football fans it's sure to be one heck of a ride in 2014.