Video: Sly Accettullo

It doesn't matter that Notre Dame-Fairfield has just 37 players suiting up. Third-year starter Sly Accettullo says the Lancers are going to do will this season. The Notre Dame-Fairfield co-captain may give you an eye-popping answer, but you won't know unless you watch the video:

Video: Stratford Line Hits It

My plan is to hit the Trumbull-Stratford scrimmage on Monday, but an early-evening commitment may keep me from getting there.

Just in case, as I was cruising Fairfield County in search of practices today, I dropped by Longbrook Park to get a look at the Red Devils.

I tested my camera with both the MiniDV and recording direct to an SD card. So here, from the SD card, is the Stratford linemen in action:

Lutrus To Start at UConn

When the UConn defense takes the field for the first time this season at Duke University, Brookfield's Scott Lutrus will be there at linebacker.

According to The News-Times, Lutrus has won the starting Husky linebacker role. The redshirt freshman will make his first career start - and play his first game - on Sept. 1 in Durham, NC.

Click here to ready more about the position battle.

Artificial Turf Wars Revisited

A group of concerned Westport parents reacted (and maybe over-reacted, we don't know for sure) to a study about these new artificial turf fields being hazardous to the health of those playing ball on them. That April concern has escalated, and now Environment and Human Health Inc., a North Haven-based environmental advocacy group, has jumped on the hazardous turf bandwagon.

Back in April, Bryan Peeples, president of Dalton, GA-based AstroTurf and a member of the Synthetic Turf Council, wrote me to say that a lot of these claims -- about the ground-up tires releasing toxins into the air -- were misleading.

But the question still remains. How do we know for sure that this generation of football players is not going to mutate into hideous creatures? After all, these fields are supposed to last for 10 years before needing a replacement, and the relatively-new fields at Norwalk and McMahon are already about as bald as I am, if I let my hair grow out.

Today's News-Times has an article that explains what's going on, and how that Synthetic Turf Council considers the amount of toxins released into the air to be "negligible." On Sunday, the Connecticut Post released this editorial about artificial turf.

My take on artificial turf: The new stuff may be better in the long run than the stuff laid out at Kennedy and Boyle stadiums, but it's still not as good as grass. Yes, it drains much quicker (unless you're at Sam Testa Field at NHS), it needs less maintenance, your uniforms don't get grass stains, etc. But I think I've seen more hamstring pulls and other aches and pains on this new stuff as I have on grass or the original turf.

And I know darn well that after standing on the sidelines covering a game for 2-2 1/2 hours, my knees and lower back are killing me. Just think what it would be like if I was an active participant.