High school football practice gets under way Monday, at least in one corner of the state.

For the second consecutive season, WPIAL teams can start practicing one week earlier than the rest of the state. The Pittsburgh-based league gets a head start and can begin playing games on Aug. 26 so it can fit in four weeks of district playoffs ahead of the PIAA playoffs.

One WPIAL coach in a different setting and situation is Art Walker Jr., who guided Pittsburgh Central Catholic to the PIAA Class AAAA title and a 16-0 record last season. He takes over a once-prominent North Allegheny program that was 4-6 last season.

"It's a new challenge," Walker said. "I was at Central seven years and had a great staff there. Everybody knew what we expected of them, and now I'm going into a situation where the terminology is going to be different for the players and they're not sure what we're after.

"Some people would say I was crazy to make the move, but I was doing a lot of traveling from where I was teaching to Central and then back home."

The last two seasons, Walker went into training camp knowing he had the talent to take a run at not only the WPIAL but the PIAA title. Central Catholic was the PIAA runner-up in 2003.

At North Allegheny, he has only 14 seniors, so playing in December isn't a realistic goal.

"It's going to take us a couple of years to get things going," he said. "Fortunately, some of the guys on the staff at Central have come over with me and my dad is going to help me out for another year or two."

Art Walker Sr. was a highly successful coach at Mt. Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s and later coached at Shady Side Academy, guiding the Indians to the PIAA Class AA final in 1998. He is in the state football coaches association hall of fame.

Ohio will remain asPennsylvania's opponent in the Big 33 all-star high school football game in Hershey for at least one more year.The series was in jeopardy because next year's Big 33 game will be played June 17, a month earlier than normal and on the same day as Ohio's North-South game. Ohio football coaches voted last weekend to send a team to Hershey, but also to retain the previously scheduled date for the North-South game.Ohio has played in the Big 33 game since 1993, winning the last three games.The Big 33 is being moved up because of a new NCAA rule that allows incoming scholarship freshmen to attend classes in the summer. A number of top players from Ohio and Pennsylvania could not play in last month's game because they were enrolled in college.The Big 33 board voted 8-4 to continue with the Ohio-Pennsylvania format next year, but some board members expressed concerns about the quality of the Ohio team. The North-South game is popular in Ohio, and some players may prefer to stay in-state.