Caught my first game of the season Thursday night in Ansonia as the Chargers dismantled Torrington. Needless to say, the Red Raiders have dropped from my top 15.
Hillhouse's one-point loss to North Haven cost them seven spots for me, though they were 4-3 last season before winning a state title, so I expect them to bounce back again.
Trumbull's game with Catholic Memorial was cancelled due to a power outage, but Trumbull was down 14-0 when the game was called, so I had to drop them a  couple spots in favor of teams that actually won this weekend.

Here's my Week 2 poll picks with Week 1 results:

1. Masuk (1-0) Def. Oxford 49-14
2. Xavier (1-0) Def. Notre Dame-West Haven 36-7
3. New Canaan (1-0) Def. Bassick 49-6
4. Ansonia (1-0) Def. Torrington 49-20
5. West Haven (1-0) Def. Amity 28-14
6. Staples (1-0) Def. St. Joseph 21-7
7. Bunnell (1-0) Def. Immaculate 46-21
8. Hand (1-0) Def. Fairfield Prep 42-0
9. North Haven (1-0) Def. Hillhouse 20-19
10. Hillhouse (0-1) LOST to North Haven 20-19
11. Montville (1-0) Def. Watertown 20-13
12. Trumbull (0-0) Game with Catholic Memorial (Mass.) cancelled due to power outage
13. Cheshire (1-0) Def. Hamden 46-18
14. New London (1-0) Def. Woodstock Academy 44-0
15. Windsor (1-0) Def. Wethersfield 33-0

Being the new guy on the Connecticut high school football beat this season, I kept questioning Register beat writer Mike Pucci about how Ansonia could possibly be a great team again without Montrell Dobbs.
After all, Dobbs ran for 300 to 400 yards per game and was the unquestioned focal point of the Chargers' offense last season.
Well, Arkeel Newsome stepped in and stepped up, filling Dobbs' shoes, at least for one game.
But Ansonia's offense will continue to improve, and become multi-faceted. QB Elliott Chudwick had receiver Andrew Matos open multiple times, but the connection wasn't made as often as it should have been. Some of the throws were a bit off, but more of the blame falls on Matos and his drops on Thursday night.
If he hauls in some of those deep throws, and Newsome keeps breaking long runs behind a big, physical offensive line, the Chargers' offense will be nearly impossible to slow down.

Going 0-10 over the course of a high school football season sucks.
I would try to be a little more poetic, but no other word sums it up as succinctly. You start in the scorching August heat and finish in the frigid November wind.
Running, hitting, hurting, vomiting, bleeding. With nothing to show in the end.
Three to four months out of that precious short amount of time that is high school. Gone.
But not all is lost, even when all are lost. Fond memories can still be created in a winless campaign. Locker-room jokes, busting chops, bus rides, those rare triumphant moments on the field that just weren't quite enough to get the job done.
Seymour had that last year. The 0-10 season. But the Wildcats are now perfect, the one perfect team in Connecticut, at least for a day. They beat O'Brien Tech 42-14 on Wednesday night in the only game on the state schedule. The rest of the state's teams will get their chance to start off perfectly over the next few days.
But now O'Brien Tech is faced with that 0-10 possibility that was Seymour's reality last season. One might say it's a probability. A program's first varsity season is never easy. Especially when it doesn't get a year of JV action under its belt first.
It's nothing to be ashamed of. The Condors split with Derby after a four-year co-op situation, and they're on their own. It's all uphill right now. But they knew that going in, and Seymour reinforced it.
Whether it's inexperience, a lack of size, a lack of numbers or Gov. Malloy, the Condors will face adversity, and they'll need to crawl before they fly.
I've been there.
In the fall of 1997 I quarterbacked St. Paul-Bristol to an 0-10 season. What made it even worse was the 7-3 season I enjoyed from the bench the year before. A share of the Northwest Conference title with Berlin and Farmington. I helped give it all back. My coach reminded me of that. A few times.
It was an awful season, but it's easier to laugh about it now. Sure wasn't then.
Being a Catholic school, we had a pretty strict dress code (khakis, white or blue button-down, tie) but on game days, we got to wear our jerseys over the shirt and tie. Always looked forward to that. There was a genuine sense of pride my freshman and sophomore years. We even had pep rallies.
But junior year, on the Fridays when I slipped on the red, white and blue No. 10, it was embarrassing. In the matter of a year, the girls in school went from "Oh, you're on the football team?" to "..."
Cold shoulders. I think I detected sympathy too.
And there were no pep rallies.
Our games went from being an event people wanted to be at, to just being a place where other students could get drunk or high and go to and not get caught by their parents.
We had five road games. We were the visiting opponent for five homecomings. I kid you not. We were the visiting team for a homecoming game in the middle of September. College kids weren't even moved into their dorms yet and they had a homecoming game to come back to.
Senior year wasn't much better, but we did get a win. E.O. Smith was in its first year of varsity play. We went up to Storrs and escaped with a 31-28 victory. We finished the year 1-9.
E.O. Smith, and St. Paul for that matter, went on to bigger and better things. So will Seymour.
And so will O'Brien Tech.

The Register Preseason Top 10 Poll has been announced.The big debate from last winter about whether Xavier or Masuk deserved to be No. 1 has carried over to this fall. Of the 25 voters, 13 put reigning Class LL champ Xavier first, the other 12 put the Class L defending champion Masuk in the top spot.

In my first year voting in the poll, here are my picks:

1. Masuk
2. Xavier
3. Hillhouse
4. New Canaan
5. Ansonia
6. West Haven
7. Staples
8. Bunnell
9. Trumbull
10. Hand
11. Brookfield
12. Montville
13. Cheshire
14. North Haven
15. Torrington

Some voters, including Register high school football beat writer Mike Pucci, subscribe to the theory that the defending No. 1 is No. 1 until they lose. But it was so close at the end of last year. Both teams went undefeated and won state titles. My reasoning is Masuk won handily in the title game and returns the Gatorade state player of the year, quarterback Casey Cochran, and dynamic running back Colin Markus. My gut feeling is Masuk would win if the two teams played. Just a feeling.

Now it's time for the season to start. The appetizer is Wednesday night with a winless team from 2010 (Seymour) facing a team in its first varsity season after four years in a co-op (O'Brien Tech). That first win will be extra sweet for whichever team gets it.

Check out Pucci's Predictions for Week 1.