Few have a better one (culture)…It took a while for Tipp’s Matt Burgbacher to swallow the finish to 2024. He again holds a winning hand for 2025. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
A week away from a sweaty opening for OHSAA football, opening night will prove which teams are bound to improve…and those whose season might amount to time figuring it out.
The check-out line at Krogers is not the place to talk football.
And yet, when you’re stuck between a man with three cases of Mountain Dew and a 50-pound bag of Ol’ Roy…and a woman with a month’s groceries, whose scooter just lost power…and someone asks, “How’s Piqua going to be this year?”………
Well, you just calculate your options and talk football.
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It’s a week from opening night and our Friday Night Picks page (sponsored by Orthopedic Associates of Southwest Ohio) might be on a gurney in the ambulance and on its way to surgery by halftime.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA sports and Ohio State baseball for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Rarely in fourteen years of writing about the best matchups in the opener have there been so many teams with obvious unknowns.
“Ah,” the cynics say, “But kids learn fast and the biggest degree of improvement will come between the first and second games of the season. And traditionally, that’s true. Traditionally, you always looked ahead to see the winnable games and opportunities for on-the-job-training.
But in 2025 I’ve been looking not so much ahead, as I have been behind, and at the scores of last year’s games – the last two, or three years’ games, trends, and the general condition of football culture in a given community, or a given conference. And yes, I’m considering what I now believe…that someone at the OHSAA was psychic enough to read the cards and believe that seven divisions, and whatever parity came with it, would eventually make up for whatever’s missing in culture.
Spoken frankly, I don’t know what to expect in area football in 2025 as the gulf between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ looms. And that simply means…there’s going to be some very good teams, sure enough. But will there be enough to challenge them. We’ll all know more after next Friday night.
For instance……….
The ability to score has never been questioned. It’s the ability to defend that’s hindered Sidney football.
I’ve written in the past about teams that intrigue me on opening night, and this year one of the teams at the head of the list…is Sidney. The Yellow Jackets open on the road at Bellefontaine, lucky that Tavien St. Clair has moved on to Ohio State, but suspect for the fact that St. Clair’s little brother, Reign, about whom some media sources write that he’s bound to surpass the numbers of his bigger, and more physical brother. That he’s ready to take over and create his own legacy. Time will tell.
But time has already told on Sidney, a team that traditionally has athletes and speed all over the field, but a habit of giving up points. Defensively, they have struggled, giving up an average of 36 points a game last year (an improvement over 2023). And those who know are curious to see if first-year coach Kyle Coleman can get a handle on keeping teams out of the end zone. Having previously coached at Sidney, it’s believed that defense will be a priority. Coaches know…that you can’t score 35 and give up 42 if you want to win. But someone wearing pads and a helmet has to believe it, too, and you have to tackle. Because, they’ll be severely tested next Friday by Division III Bellefontaine.
Body language told the tale of Coach Bill Nees and the Piqua Indians in 2024.
Culture has never been an issue for Piqua over the 25-plus years of head coach Bill Nees. Pride and tradition were as strong as their last win against Troy during the good times. But 2024 was another matter. Nees has long relied on strong leadership, and that mythical ‘next man up’ persona so important in high school football, and both were strangely lacking last year. The Indians finished 4-6, missed the playoffs, and scored just 20 combined points in their traditional rivalry games with Troy (21-7) and Sidney (20-13).
They simply didn’t have the pieces you’ve seen in the past – physical line play and that gashing running back in the tradition of Brandon Saine and Jasiah Medley. The defense couldn’t bail them out.
Can they improve on 4-6? Can they restore some of the lustre to a fine football tradition, highlighted by their Division II state title in 2006? They open at home against Lima Senior next Friday and Nees is sure to know soon enough. Was last year was just a blown fuse?
Or a power outage?
In West Milton they’ve lived for football since the days of Watt Farrar and Ed Lendenski…and their hopes during times when football mattered more than math were usually fulfilled. Milton developed a reputation over the years of hard, physical football, bruising running backs, and more often than not a little blood.
Three years ago after their best season in two decades they graduated 18 seniors, and literally, every experienced player on the roster. And that roster dipped precipitously in 2024 from nearly seventy to about forty five. They’re coached by the proven Bret Pearce, in his second tour of duty, and after a staggering start in ’24, the Bulldogs won five of their last six regular season games before losing to Miami East in the first round of the playoffs, 14-6.
Milton coach Bret Pearce would welcome more cold showers in 2025.
The numbers, by all accounts, are about the same, as is their schedule – opening at home with Versailles out of the MAC before a more winnable contest in Week 2 against Graham (3-7). I believe in Bret Pearce, who’s always been able to pull a rabbit out of the hat because actual sleight of hand – magic – is his hobby. And there are at least six winnable games on the schedule in this year’s Three Rivers Conference. But making another Mitchell Evans magically appear – a Tyler Wilson or Jake Finfrock – is more of a Penn and Teller trick.
I’m genuinely intrigued by what you hear about the long-suffering St. Henry Redskins – and long-suffering is a matter of perspective because the Redskins have averaged better than 6 wins for most of the past decade under then coach Brad Luthman…in the most competitive conference in Ohio!
But football has always meant more in St. Henry – the expectations higher – since the days of Bob Hoying, Jim Lachey, Jeff Hartings, Todd Boeckman, and coach Tim Boeckman, who won four of St. Henry’s six state titles in the decade of the 90s.
Not since 2006 has St. Henry brought home the big trophy, and not since 1996 has St. Henry actually won a MAC league title. Where in some communities you say that the natives are restless, in St. Henry they’re meeting in secret, trying to figure out a way past Marion Local, Versailles, Minster, Fort Recovery, Anna and New Bremen, all of whom have won a state title since the Redskins’s last.
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But some believe, yes, that this is the year of atonement under second-year coach Josh Werling, an optometrist by day, who’s seeing light at the end of the tunnel with an experienced offensive line, an outstanding tandem of running backs in Charlie Werling and Jack Huelsman, and speed and depth heretofore missing.
Optometrist by day, St. Henry coach Josh Werling sees good things for the future of St. Henry football.
At their best during the 90s, and in 2006 with running back Adam Puthoff, St. Henry pounded opponents with a relentless running game. And the intrigue in 2025 is to see if they’re not capable of doing that again, given that perennial favorite Marion Local, and Coldwater, both suffered massive losses to graduation. So indeed, this could be St. Henry’s chance to kick in the door.
And if the schedule is an indicator, they may know soon enough, with challenging opening games against Celina and Archbold, before playing Marion Local in the MAC opener on September 5th. If they can chance that gauntlet and survive, no more restlessness and meeting in secret in St. Henry. They’re eager, willing, and ready to again sing ‘Hail To The Redskins’.
Finally, there is an intrigue about Matt Burgbacher’s winning culture in Tipp City, a program that has surprised everyone since Burgbacher left Troy five years ago to coach his alma mater.
In back-to-back seasons…they advanced to the state semi-finals in 2022, made another deep run in 2023, only to get knocked out of their unbeaten season last year with an ugly, unexpected performance against St. Marys in the second round of the playoffs.
They return this year with a talented offense headed by junior quarterback Larkin Thomas, a monster offensive line, and a resolve to atone for the embarrassing finish to last season. They have an advantageous schedule in the MVL ‘North’ Division, but their opening game on the road with Bellbrook has been a challenge over a four-year span.
If they stay healthy, Tipp is expected to sweep through ten weeks of football to put themselves in that position of atonement. What they do with that is the essence of sports and competition. There’s no talk of woke and political correctness at Tipp. Regardless of who it offends, they want to win.
We’ll all watch and see.
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