Forsha on Football: The high school season starts this week; college football, too
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
This is one of, if not my favorite time of the year as high school football is back, college football is returning and the NFL isn’t too far away, either. As some who makes it no secret the reason he loves sports is because of football, this is like all of the holidays wrapped up into one big giant gift with a bow and shiny wrapping paper inside a nice bag.
That is how much I enjoy watching, reading and writing about football, leaving me to write this “Forsha on Football” column once and maybe even twice a week throughout the three individual football seasons.
This column will be mostly about the high school football scene throughout southern Ohio, but we’ll also mix in some other football news, notes and opinions about teams around the state that catch my attention. Also, we’ll take a look at college football as well, but mostly the Big Ten, and within that, the Big Ten East. We’ll look at other Ohio colleges and conference in Division I-III this season, too.
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As for the NFL, I’ll spare you my thoughts on the Dallas Cowboys – you can visit NFLSpinZone.com for my articles on the Cowboys – but I’ll use this space to write about the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns as I do watch a lot of their games as well. (NFL Game Pass was made for football fans like me.)
All in all, this weekly to twice-weekly column will be a mix of all levels of football, and it can be a place to come and just relax and read about the game. I also want this to be a place for everyone to leave their opinions on football and make this a group effort as we have a space to really talk about the game we all love.
The eighth annual First and Ten High School Football Preview presented by The Highland County Press is available now at The HCP office and select area stores. Stop by the office at 128 South High Street in Hillsboro to pick up your free copy of this 44-page publication.
Congratulations, you have made it to the 2017 football season. Have fun, enjoy the game and thanks for reading all season long!
(Note: Check back on Thursday for Week 1 FAC and SVC game previews.)
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
The regular season in Ohio begins this week for the fall football season, and for teams in Highland County and the surrounding area, it begins 10 weeks’ worth of football that will vary in emotions and always bring excitement in some sort of fashion.
That bring us all to the new endeavor of the Frontier Athletic Conference, as five teams of the former South Central Ohio League begin play on their own away from Clinton County teams, but adding Jackson for a six-team conference.
As I’ve written on more than one occasion, I’m going to really miss having Clinton-Massie, Wilmington and East Clinton in the same conference as the teams from Highland and Fayette counties, but life happens, I guess.
Looking forward to this season it will be exciting to see how Jackson meshes with the other five schools — Chillicothe, Hillsboro, McClain, Miami Trace and Washington — in the new FAC. The race for the conference title is an unknown, but the two favorites going into the season are Chillicothe and Jackson (but keep an eye on Washington, who will have a very athletic offense once again).
Another area conference — the Scioto Valley Conference (SVC) — should be exciting to watch as well. The Zane Trace Pioneers enter this season looking for their fifth consecutive SVC championship with a new head coach.
There are also the Southeastern Panthers, who are in the hunt too with a team full of seniors who have been in the starting mix since their freshman season when they didn’t win a single game to coming off a season in ’16 where they had a winning season.
Others in the conference could make some noise too, including the Paint Valley Bearcats, who at one time last season had seven freshmen in the offensive starting lineup. That experience alone will make them a better team than they were last season when they finished with four wins.
Those two conferences will make area high school football very exciting, but there is also the Southern Buckeye Athletic and Academic Conference (SBAAC), where I can’t wait to see how the Clinton-Massie Falcons break in their new home. Remember, they dominated the SCOL, winning 11 championships and closing out the league with 59 consecutive wins. They, as always, will be a team to watch, just now in the SBAAC.
FAC GAMES TO WATCH THIS SEASON
FAC fans will really want to keep a close eye on these conference games this season, as they will play a big part in how the standings will sort out throughout the 2017 season.
The final five weeks of the high school football season will be the conference season for the FAC, and it will be in that five-week span that the first champion will be crowned. Whether that will be Chillicothe, Hillsboro, Jackson, McClain, Miami Trace or Washington … we’ll have to wait and see.
Until the champion is crowned, there is the task of playing the conference games. That aforementioned five-week slate for the FAC has some quality match-ups, including the natural rivalry games due to location, games that have been competitive in recent memory and games that seem like excellent match-ups on paper.
At the beginning of this season, here are what could be considered four very important FAC games for the upcoming 2017 season.
• Week 6: Sept. 29 — Jackson at Washington: What a game to start the inaugural FAC season slate of games. By the time this game arrives on the calendar, who knows what the overall records of theses two teams will be, but they both will possess strong offenses. My guess is this game will come down to who has the stronger defense.
• Week 7: Oct. 6 — Washington at Hillsboro: Last season, this game came down to just two points (35-33 in Week 4), and it took until the final play of the game for a winner to be determined. If that game was any indication of what could be this season, it could not only bring excitement to Richards Memorial Field in 2017, but really help either the Blue Lions or Indians in their final spot of the FAC standings. The Blue Lions have a few highly athletic players who excel in other sports besides football, and the Indians are also in that same boat. The Blue Lions have a new starting quarterback in Dillon Steward, a junior, who can use his athleticism to take over a game as he was a wide receiver last season.
• Week 9: Oct. 20 — Chillicothe at Washington: Here is a game that will have two very good overall athletes at quarterback in junior Dillon Steward for Washington and senior Branden Maughmer for the Cavaliers. Watching those two quarterbacks in a game is well worth the price of admission, and it will make for an excellent late-season match-up in the FAC. Last season, the Cavaliers dominated Washington, 42-6 (Week 9) en route to an eventual playoff berth.
• Week 10: Oct. 27 — Chillicothe at Jackson: This one has the potential to be a very tough and even more important football game. In fact, it could be the most important game of the FAC football slate because the winner of this game could become the inaugural FAC champion, depending on how they’ve played up to this final week of the regular season. Last year, it was Chillicothe who gained the win by a 24-21 score in Week 2. Fans should mark this game on their calendar and see by the time the game date arrives if it is as important as it seems before the start of the 2017 season.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
The Division I college football season begins this weekend with a handful of games, but teams from the Big Ten don’t play until next week.
The college football season begins this Saturday with five games on the schedule.
ESPN will broadcast Portland State at BYU (3 p.m.) and Stanford vs. Rice (10 p.m.) on Saturday, Aug. 26.
CBS Sports Network will have Oregon State at Colorado State (2:30 p.m.) and South Florida at San Jose State (7:30 p.m.).
There is also Hawaii at UMass (6 p.m.) with no national TV channel.
Of those five games, the one that draws my interest the most is Stanford vs. Rice at 10 p.m. on Saturday night. This is a good way to wrap up a weekend day, plus Stanford is ranked 14th in the first Associated Press college football poll to start the season.
College football expert Phil Steele has the Stanford Cardinals ranked second in the Pac-12 North, with Washington ahead of them before the season. A player to watch for Stanford in this game will be tight end Dalton Schultz, as Steele has him in his preseason first-team Pac-12 team.
The senior tight end enters this season with 33 career receptions for 343 yards and two touchdowns. Last season, Schultz caught 23 passes for 222 yards and one touchdown, averaging 9.7 yards per reception.
PRO FOOTBALL
From the looks of it, the Cleveland Browns are starting rookie DeShone Kizer in their third preseason game on Saturday, meaning he’s going to be the starting quarterback during what is the final dress rehearsal for the starters on the roster.
This is a big deal, and if the former Notre Dame signal caller is able to play a solid game, he just might be the top quarterback on the roster when Week 1 arrives, overtaking the not-so-great Brock Osweiler who has been less than stellar in his NFL career with the Denver Broncos and Houston Texans.
The Browns will play their third preseason game on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Now for the Bengals, they are scheduled for a Sunday afternoon (4:30 p.m.) preseason game at the Washington Redskins. This game should be fun to watch, as with all the NFL teams, the third preseason game is where the starting lineup will be on the field for usually three quarters.
The Bengals this week had better play a little more crisp than they did against the Kansas City Chiefs, where they failed to score a touchdown. The season is getting too close to be that stagnant on offense, preseason or not.
That is how much I enjoy watching, reading and writing about football, leaving me to write this “Forsha on Football” column once and maybe even twice a week throughout the three individual football seasons.
This column will be mostly about the high school football scene throughout southern Ohio, but we’ll also mix in some other football news, notes and opinions about teams around the state that catch my attention. Also, we’ll take a look at college football as well, but mostly the Big Ten, and within that, the Big Ten East. We’ll look at other Ohio colleges and conference in Division I-III this season, too.
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As for the NFL, I’ll spare you my thoughts on the Dallas Cowboys – you can visit NFLSpinZone.com for my articles on the Cowboys – but I’ll use this space to write about the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns as I do watch a lot of their games as well. (NFL Game Pass was made for football fans like me.)
All in all, this weekly to twice-weekly column will be a mix of all levels of football, and it can be a place to come and just relax and read about the game. I also want this to be a place for everyone to leave their opinions on football and make this a group effort as we have a space to really talk about the game we all love.
The eighth annual First and Ten High School Football Preview presented by The Highland County Press is available now at The HCP office and select area stores. Stop by the office at 128 South High Street in Hillsboro to pick up your free copy of this 44-page publication.
Congratulations, you have made it to the 2017 football season. Have fun, enjoy the game and thanks for reading all season long!
(Note: Check back on Thursday for Week 1 FAC and SVC game previews.)
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
The regular season in Ohio begins this week for the fall football season, and for teams in Highland County and the surrounding area, it begins 10 weeks’ worth of football that will vary in emotions and always bring excitement in some sort of fashion.
That bring us all to the new endeavor of the Frontier Athletic Conference, as five teams of the former South Central Ohio League begin play on their own away from Clinton County teams, but adding Jackson for a six-team conference.
As I’ve written on more than one occasion, I’m going to really miss having Clinton-Massie, Wilmington and East Clinton in the same conference as the teams from Highland and Fayette counties, but life happens, I guess.
Looking forward to this season it will be exciting to see how Jackson meshes with the other five schools — Chillicothe, Hillsboro, McClain, Miami Trace and Washington — in the new FAC. The race for the conference title is an unknown, but the two favorites going into the season are Chillicothe and Jackson (but keep an eye on Washington, who will have a very athletic offense once again).
Another area conference — the Scioto Valley Conference (SVC) — should be exciting to watch as well. The Zane Trace Pioneers enter this season looking for their fifth consecutive SVC championship with a new head coach.
There are also the Southeastern Panthers, who are in the hunt too with a team full of seniors who have been in the starting mix since their freshman season when they didn’t win a single game to coming off a season in ’16 where they had a winning season.
Others in the conference could make some noise too, including the Paint Valley Bearcats, who at one time last season had seven freshmen in the offensive starting lineup. That experience alone will make them a better team than they were last season when they finished with four wins.
Those two conferences will make area high school football very exciting, but there is also the Southern Buckeye Athletic and Academic Conference (SBAAC), where I can’t wait to see how the Clinton-Massie Falcons break in their new home. Remember, they dominated the SCOL, winning 11 championships and closing out the league with 59 consecutive wins. They, as always, will be a team to watch, just now in the SBAAC.
FAC GAMES TO WATCH THIS SEASON
FAC fans will really want to keep a close eye on these conference games this season, as they will play a big part in how the standings will sort out throughout the 2017 season.
The final five weeks of the high school football season will be the conference season for the FAC, and it will be in that five-week span that the first champion will be crowned. Whether that will be Chillicothe, Hillsboro, Jackson, McClain, Miami Trace or Washington … we’ll have to wait and see.
Until the champion is crowned, there is the task of playing the conference games. That aforementioned five-week slate for the FAC has some quality match-ups, including the natural rivalry games due to location, games that have been competitive in recent memory and games that seem like excellent match-ups on paper.
At the beginning of this season, here are what could be considered four very important FAC games for the upcoming 2017 season.
• Week 6: Sept. 29 — Jackson at Washington: What a game to start the inaugural FAC season slate of games. By the time this game arrives on the calendar, who knows what the overall records of theses two teams will be, but they both will possess strong offenses. My guess is this game will come down to who has the stronger defense.
• Week 7: Oct. 6 — Washington at Hillsboro: Last season, this game came down to just two points (35-33 in Week 4), and it took until the final play of the game for a winner to be determined. If that game was any indication of what could be this season, it could not only bring excitement to Richards Memorial Field in 2017, but really help either the Blue Lions or Indians in their final spot of the FAC standings. The Blue Lions have a few highly athletic players who excel in other sports besides football, and the Indians are also in that same boat. The Blue Lions have a new starting quarterback in Dillon Steward, a junior, who can use his athleticism to take over a game as he was a wide receiver last season.
• Week 9: Oct. 20 — Chillicothe at Washington: Here is a game that will have two very good overall athletes at quarterback in junior Dillon Steward for Washington and senior Branden Maughmer for the Cavaliers. Watching those two quarterbacks in a game is well worth the price of admission, and it will make for an excellent late-season match-up in the FAC. Last season, the Cavaliers dominated Washington, 42-6 (Week 9) en route to an eventual playoff berth.
• Week 10: Oct. 27 — Chillicothe at Jackson: This one has the potential to be a very tough and even more important football game. In fact, it could be the most important game of the FAC football slate because the winner of this game could become the inaugural FAC champion, depending on how they’ve played up to this final week of the regular season. Last year, it was Chillicothe who gained the win by a 24-21 score in Week 2. Fans should mark this game on their calendar and see by the time the game date arrives if it is as important as it seems before the start of the 2017 season.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
The Division I college football season begins this weekend with a handful of games, but teams from the Big Ten don’t play until next week.
The college football season begins this Saturday with five games on the schedule.
ESPN will broadcast Portland State at BYU (3 p.m.) and Stanford vs. Rice (10 p.m.) on Saturday, Aug. 26.
CBS Sports Network will have Oregon State at Colorado State (2:30 p.m.) and South Florida at San Jose State (7:30 p.m.).
There is also Hawaii at UMass (6 p.m.) with no national TV channel.
Of those five games, the one that draws my interest the most is Stanford vs. Rice at 10 p.m. on Saturday night. This is a good way to wrap up a weekend day, plus Stanford is ranked 14th in the first Associated Press college football poll to start the season.
College football expert Phil Steele has the Stanford Cardinals ranked second in the Pac-12 North, with Washington ahead of them before the season. A player to watch for Stanford in this game will be tight end Dalton Schultz, as Steele has him in his preseason first-team Pac-12 team.
The senior tight end enters this season with 33 career receptions for 343 yards and two touchdowns. Last season, Schultz caught 23 passes for 222 yards and one touchdown, averaging 9.7 yards per reception.
PRO FOOTBALL
From the looks of it, the Cleveland Browns are starting rookie DeShone Kizer in their third preseason game on Saturday, meaning he’s going to be the starting quarterback during what is the final dress rehearsal for the starters on the roster.
This is a big deal, and if the former Notre Dame signal caller is able to play a solid game, he just might be the top quarterback on the roster when Week 1 arrives, overtaking the not-so-great Brock Osweiler who has been less than stellar in his NFL career with the Denver Broncos and Houston Texans.
The Browns will play their third preseason game on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Now for the Bengals, they are scheduled for a Sunday afternoon (4:30 p.m.) preseason game at the Washington Redskins. This game should be fun to watch, as with all the NFL teams, the third preseason game is where the starting lineup will be on the field for usually three quarters.
The Bengals this week had better play a little more crisp than they did against the Kansas City Chiefs, where they failed to score a touchdown. The season is getting too close to be that stagnant on offense, preseason or not.