Leading off today: Niagara Falls quarterback Dale Stewart committed yesterday to play football in 2011 at the University at Buffalo, where he'll get the chance to shatter the rushing records of his brother James Starks, The Buffalo News reported.

   UB became the first school to offer Stewart a scholarship in February, and he also attracted interest from Pittsburgh and Maryland, the paper reported.

   "I'm following some huge footsteps with my brother, but I thought UB was the right team for me," Stewart said. "They have been contacting me the whole time and seeing how I'm doing with my grades, SATs, and everything else. They really care about me so that's the right school for me."

   Stewart is projected as a college tailback despite playing QB for the Wolverines.

   From the weekend: I'm not sure how I missed this while recapping weekend football action in earlier blogs, but Elmira Southside's Jordan Shay had a game for the ages Saturday when the Green Hornets beat Johnson City 54-37.

   The senior receiver, a third-team all-state selection in Class A as a junior, caught 10 passes for 264 yards and five touchdowns in addition to intercepting two passes on defense, one of which he returned 26 yards for a touchdown. He tacked on a fumble recovery and completed a pair of two-point conversion passes for good measure.

   QB Brad Bellinger, a St. John's baseball recruit, finished 16 of 24 for 348 yards and the five TDs plus an 11-yard touchdown run. He and Shay combined for eight receptions, four TDs and 208 yards in the second half.

   Punishment: In Section 6, nine South Park football players will be suspended this weekend for participating in a fight with players from Bishop Timon-St. Jude to bring an early end to last week's game, WGRZ-TV reported.

   South Park plays Buffalo East on Saturday.

   I've not seen a definitive report yet on the aftermath of LeRoy's brawl with Warsaw, but it appears the Oatkan Knights would be without as many as four linemen for their rivalry game vs. Caledonia-Mumford on Friday.

   The season issue resurfaces: Girls soccer coaches in the PSAL want to return to a spring season but concede they're probably stuck in the fall even after the third and final season of an agreement with the New York Civil

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Liberties Union ends next fall, The New York Daily News reported.

   The agreement to switch to a fall format in 2009 in effect shut down a threatened Title IX challenge. The NYCLU argued that having girls play in the spring forced them to choose between playing for their high school or club teams and reduced college recruiting options.

   "If the girls players want to go back and coaches want to vote to go back, they should be allowed to go back," Forest Hills coach Bob Sprance told the paper. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is a disaster that should have never happened. It's got to be changed back."

   Seeing red (and yellow): The Post-Star did a nice job late last week reporting on soccer yellow and red cards and the repercussions (i.e., suspensions), examining questions from the perspective of players, coaches and game officials.

   I have to admit I was a little distressed to learn that one player had accumulated three yellow cards and one red card before the midpoint of the boys season.

   You can read the story here.

   Spreading the field: If you've wondered about the spread offense with respect to high school football, check out The Times Herald-Record story about how it came to be rather popular in Section 9.

   “Once we started running the spread, we weren't just some check mark for other teams in the state playoffs,” former Monroe-Woodbury QB Dan Scalo said. “The other teams thought, ‘Oh, we are just going to roll over them.' But we became a force."

   Extra points: Carmel football coach Todd Cayea goes for career win No. 100 on Friday at Arlington. . . . North Tonawanda's football field will be named Friday for the late George Vetter, who was 194-42-13 while coaching there from 1937 to 1970. Also, Riverside will become Charlie Dingboom Field in honor of the man who coached the team to a 41-game winning streak and a 120-94-11 mark from 1959 to 1989.