Marion Local returns with the most lethal passing game in all of small-school football (Victor Hoelscher, above). What remains to be seen is ‘who’, and by how much. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
It’s here, believe it or not, in just another week…and with the same questions from past years. Who’s going to be better? Who’s a team to watch? And is this year’s Marion Local team their best ever?
I have written this same column for years…about area football and teams that intrigue me going into the new season.
Truthfully, I used to do it based on the principle of hope springs eternal. Anything can happen. After all, “you have to play the game”.
Publisher/editor Sonny Fulks writes the Buckeyes and OHSAA sports on Press Pros.
But if what you write is based upon cliches’…..
“No one’s bigger than the team.”
Or, this favorite bit of ‘coach speak’: “One game at a time.”
Actually, all of the above is true. And, none of it is true. Such is high school football in the increasing day of the ‘haves’ get better while the ‘have nots’ drop farther behind.
And that’s intriguing. In either case , it becomes which schools go in one direction or the other, and how they do it.
It starts with stability, consistency, and in some cases…those with the most to gain, before they gain the most. And that’s what 2025 looks like before anyone ever takes the field.
And BTW, if your school isn’t one of the following, it only means that your consistency is not only taken for granted, but admired.
And then there’s Marion Local, where the only intrigue left is who they beat on the first weekend of December.
Someone mentioned it during the PBA tournaments last week…when are you going to write about football?
Sure, and here it is. My teams of intrigue, ’24…how, and why!
Tipp’s Matt Burgbacher is fast gaining the reputation for being of the area’s best…and winning with ‘no name’ football.
Tipp City…I can’t think of another program that has lost more key contributors to graduation in the past three seasons, and yet seems to retool without precipitous drops in performance. The reason? The job Matt Burgbacher has done in getting kids into the program, and his ability to convince them of their worth once they’re there. They do it quietly, and no one benefits from less hype about key this, or key that, than the Red Devils. Frankly, outside of 45371 hardly anyone can name one standout player that’s going to emerge this year, but that doesn’t seem to matter. They all kinda’ just do it together. This is what Burgbacher believed when he left Troy to take the job five years ago, shocking those who thought he was leaving too much at Troy, for too little at Tipp. Since then he’s gone 33-8 in the last three seasons and took the Red Devils to the Division III state semi-finals in 2022. And still, you’d be hard-pressed outside Tipp to name an individual player that helped him to it. Truly, at Tipp no one’s bigger than the team.
Piqua…Their coach has been there for a quarter century, and few understands the highs and lows more than Bill Nees. He has known the heights of being a state runner-up, a state champion…and the lows that came with 2023 when the Indians dropped precipitously to 2-8 and missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade. So to begin this year…another coaching legend, Jim Mora, might be moved to say, “Playoffs? You’re talking about Playoffs?” That’s how far the Indians dropped from the ranks of the relevants just a year ago. But Nees won’t swing that way. Ever the optimist, you’ll see him bring Piqua back towards at least the middle in 2024. The cycle of talent and leadership hit them hard last year, which only gets better when you work harder than the next guy and have more to prove. And in this day of everyone making the playoffs, I won’t be surprised when Nees somehow coaches them up enough to get there again in ’24. How he does it will be the intriguing part.
When you’re 6’4″ and weigh 200 pounds, and have weapons around you…surprising things suddenly happen. We’ll see with Anna, and Alex Shappie (above).
Anna…It’s easy in the MAC to overlook teams that lurk, because Marion Local’s in that league and they never ‘lurk’. They just take the lurk out of other teams. But the Anna Rockets intrigue me in 2024 because they have that one element that coaches covet. They have a quarterback named Alex Shappie, and coach Nick Marino has found success in the past with tooling around a dynamic quarterback, like Bart Bixler, who took them to the Division VI title in 2019. Dynamic? They finished 5-5 in the MAC last year, then ran off 166 points in three playoff games again teams outside the MAC. This is not to say that the Rockets will win the conference, because after all, Marion’s still there and Anna has to play them on week 8. But between week 1 (Indian Lake) and Marion (week 8) the Rockets have a favorable schedule. And if they can stay healthy Nick Marino has enough pieces around Alex Shappie to make them threatening. Wait and see if I’m not right.
St. Henry…There’s a itch in St. Henry that they’re dying to scratch. And that is…how to bring winning football back to the home of Jim Lachey, Bob Hoying, Jeff Hartings, and Todd Boeckman. It’s a proud tradition that’s fallen on discouraging times of late, necessitating a coaching change for 2024, where former assistant Josh Werling takes over for Brad Luthman after ten years. Their record during that span? A bit over .500, a lot of 6-4 seasons, and then 7-16 the past two years when the Redskins were simply not in the same conversation with rivals Coldwater and Marion Local. But where there’s a will there’s a way, and I can’t think of a place where there’s more will, presently, than in St. Henry. The gene pool is there, obviously. And Werling’s first order of business might be to organize an offense that struggled to move the football in their season-ending playoff loss to Ansonia last November. If he can do that the curiosity about Redskin football will return quickly. What’s intriguing is how long it will take. They’ve had the best uniforms in the area for years. Now they need the Lacheys, Hoyings, Hartings and Boeckmans to put in them.
One of best in Versailles football history, the Tigers will be hard-pressed to replace the impact of Michael Osborne, (above).
Versailles…The Tigers are suddenly intriguing after winning the Division V title three years ago, a game that restored the roar to this once-heralded program. Now, it’s a matter of how many games they can win on an annual basis, like the old days – stability and consistency. It remains to be seen how they replace graduated quarterback Michael Osborne, along with complements A.J. Griesdorn, Lane Bergman and Joel Gehret on offense. But when you win you attract, and Ryan Jones is bringing kids into the program the way Al Hetrick did when he was winning. Success, once again, begats success.
Sidney…Coming off a 5-6 season a year ago, the Yellow Jackets looked athletic and talented against teams that looked like them. Their issue was what they did against teams that didn’t look like them. Case in point, they lost four of their last five against the best teams they played – Tipp, Troy, Butler, and then to Harrison in a one-and-done playoff appearance. And in those four games they were outscored 177 to 27. Now that’s intriguing. We do agree about the athletic part. What we’re curious to see is how long it takes second-year coach Dave Taynor to rise to the ranks of the afore-mentioned.
Minster…If you’re wondering why this list is so MAC-heavy, do your research. And compare the post-season successes of a league that would simply overwhelm the likes of comparable Division VI and VII conferences; and let’s face it, a lot of the Western Buckeye League teams that are schools with bigger enrollment. Division VII Minster is again one of the smallest, and one of the most threatening. When healthy, Seth Whiting’s Wildcats are one of the most explosive offensive teams in all of small school football, led by quarterback Brogan Stephey and wide receiver James Niemeyer. The issue, however, is staying healthy. Stephey is a bonafide 2,500 yard passer and a thousand-yard rusher over the course of ten games. But in each of the last two seasons he missed the second half with a hip injury and a broken arm. But behind lead receiver Niemeyer, there’s a complement of other receiving options, all upperclassmen, who have the experience and enough past success to play with any and everyone in 2024, including Marion Local and Vesailles, the only teams to beat them in 2023. Marion did it twice. This team deserves your interest…if they stay healthy.
Dual threat….Baylen Blockberger means everything to Coldwater’s season in 2024.
Coldwater…Everyone wants to believe that last year’s 12-2 mark will be the next chapter on which Coldwater football will build. And it could be, given that 1) quarterback Baylen Blockberger is back, and a proven leader from last year’s 12-2 record. But this year he’ll be leading a cast that’s without some of his weapons from a year ago. Wide receiver A. J. Harlamert is graduated, an enormous loss to the passing game and overall team speed. But running backs Miles Pottkotter and Cody Depweg return, which means that Chip Otten’s offense will be more ground oriented until they retool the passing game. The intriguing thing about Coldwater is the fact that regardless of who they lose, that coaching staff seems to figure it out in time to make them a playoff threat the succeeding year. And I like their chances a lot more with Blockberger, than without him. Are they 9-1 good, again? They open with Valley View and they close with Marion Local. In between, anything’s possible.
Marion Local…Finally, the elephant in the room, and the team that across Ohio people are asking…will this be the best Marion team in coach Tim Goodwin’s twenty five years tenure as head coach? During that time he’s won 90% of his playoff games, and a well-documented 14 state titles in 17 championship appearances, including now three in a row that crowns a 48-game ongoing win streak. The detractors will point to them doing it against Division VI or VII. But the more logical ones point to the fact that no other area playoff hopeful in Division II or III will dare play Marion in a season-opening non-conference game. No one! Division III Wapakoneta and Dayton Chaminade tried, and promptly dropped them from the schedule. Because, there’s nothing to gain if you win, and too much to lose if you don’t.
Tim Goodwin’s has won 309 of 357 games at Marion Local in 24 seasons.
So this year Marion will drive nearly four hours to southwest Indiana to play Linton-Stockton on opening night, a school of 380 who went 10-2 last year against Indiana high school competition. But win streak notwithstanding, it’s not the streak that’s intriguing. It never has been at Marion. Rather, it’s how much they improve after the first three weeks and how they tool for yet another playoff run and an anticipated 15th state title. All the tools are there, led by quarterback Justin Knouff, and a greater assortment of offensive and defensive tools than ever before. They return receivers Vic Hoelscher and Andrew Pohlman, and six all-staters on defense. What remains to be seen is not ‘if’ they win, but ‘who’ they beat. Beyond that, there’s simply no intrigue left.
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