Week 5: South Point (0-4) @ Valley (4-0)

[nutronron2012]

I would love to see Valley pick up Ironton on the schedule. That would be a huge step up. I also hear from some people from WV. That Wayne, WV has room on their schedule as well. That is also a very good AA program with State Championships under their belt. I'm glad to see the contract end with Rock Hill and South Point soon. Its hard to get up for a team you're suppose to beat by 40+.

[Izladoom]

Yeah I would much rather play ironton and loose than play rock hill and win by 40+ every year. It kills us with playoff points.

[Crab's Brother]

Yeah I would much rather play ironton and loose than play rock hill and win by 40+ every year. It kills us with playoff points.

Not as much as a loss does.

[Izladoom]

A loss to them never hurts burg. Playing theses teams remind me to much of the 90's when we would go 10-0 and not make the playoffs.

[Alitown]

I don't know if I agree with the idea of wanting to schedule Ironton. It just makes it that much harder for us to make the playoffs. Yes it would be good preparation for the playoffs but that's if we even get in. Yes it's a lot of points if we win, but we most likely would have made the playoffs anyway. We already have a very tough conference and a very tough region. An 8-2 record doesn't guarantee you a spot in region 19. So if we were to lose we would have to go 9-0 the rest of the way to make sure we get in. I would like to see us play Athens or NY. That would still be a very competitive game. That's still not a for sure win or anything, but I like our chances a lot better

[blue53]

I would be more on favor of seeing a team further north that typically mix up the pass/ run game more..

[N4da'score]

Next season for Valley will be the "BEAST", they drop to D6 and will probally be the top seed in their division/region throughout the season. Schd/Playing Ironton is not a "BAD" thing it will only improve your chances of success for the program. Nutronron, I'm more concerned about if Ironton and Wayne, WV. would want to come and play a D6 school next season and beyond ....Valley FB/ sports programs has been at it's best for sometime now, it's just sad that enrollment is effecting it's status in the future!

[coop]

How sure are you we'll be D6

[N4da'score]

Last enrollment count the school had, Having Baseball droping a division along with football! Excate numbers not sure, this was male enrollment for school yr 2013 given at a schoolboard meeting during past baseball season. I was shocked hearing the news, but that has been confimed by a schoolboard member!!!!!

[Crab's Brother]

A loss to them never hurts burg. Playing theses teams remind me to much of the 90's when we would go 10-0 and not make the playoffs.

Valley had one 10-0 season and didn't make the playoffs. That was in 1992 and there was some funny business that kept us out but that is for another day.

The only reason that Valley will be D6 next season is the switch to 7 divisions. The cutoff will be 112-158 for D6. Our current count (126) is very low in that range. With the current sophomore and 8th grade classes being so small, it looks fairly certain we will be in Division 6.

That said, there will be others joining us. This won't be the same Region 23 that we could have made the playoffs at 5-5/6-4 multiple times over the past several years. If the region alignments and numbers don't change much for the current Region 19 schools, you could be looking at Burg (155 currently), Wynford (144), Hillsdale (140), Liberty Union (158), and Nelsonville (151) among others.

[Izladoom]

i thought i remember them going 10-0 in 95 also. i may be wrong tho. i just remember we had some really good teams and we did not make it cause of are strength of schedule. i think playing ny would be a great thing. i loved it when we played saint thomas aquinas from up north.

[starbase_318]

How long is the Valley/Portsmouth contract? Is it currently 2 or 4 years, longer? I like the Peake/CG series. How much is gained by playing a two league schedule? I don't focus on the numbers game, other than Ws and Ls. Who cares where a team is ranked in week 4! It is meaningless and could become a distraction. If you take care of the Ws, then more times than not you'll obtain team goals. You can probably go in a 50 mile radius and find all the competition you want to replace one of the OVC teams. Personally, I'd do a little research to determine what team travels the best and provides the competition to fit your wants/needs. In today's environment both are equally important. IMO

[Bo_Diaz]

i thought i remember them going 10-0 in 95 also. i may be wrong tho. i just remember we had some really good teams and we did not make it cause of are strength of schedule. i think playing ny would be a great thing. i loved it when we played saint thomas aquinas from up north.

I know Jesco and Crab's Brother have discussed this at length on here, but Valley has had 1 (ONE, UNO) team go 10-0 and fail to qualify for the playoffs. That was in 1992 when one of the Columbus schools forfeited a game to gain more points than beating a bad team... Long story short, it happened once and the system has since been changed.

As for playing Ironton... I don't know that it helps in the long run especially with the current and future enrollment numbers. Valley is by far the smallest school in SOC II and looks to be getting a little smaller as Crab's Brother already explained. Sure a win against Ironton would be great, but the loss is harmful and you DO NOT get points for strength of schedule if you lose. There is no need to add Ironton with the current schedule. I wouldn't mind the Indians picking up a similar sized school from the north/northeast... That could benefit in the long run, but the schedule thing is so overblown and the most of the arguments are not looking at the big picture or factoring in how the playoff system works. It's hard to look around and try and project which schools are going to be solid OOC games in 4-6 years... And it's even harder to find schools with schedule openings within a reasonable distance to travel on a Friday night.

Also as stated, the D6 drop is not as big of a factor as it would be if say Valley were D6 this year or last.

[Izladoom]

Yeah the whole d6 thing is not that big of a deal. There will be a lot of teams from d5 to move down with all the new changes so we will probably still be playing most of the same teams in the playoffs

[N4da'score]

Gameday.............. Valley will sharpen up the starters tonite for leauge play starting next week. This game IMO will be outta reach for South Point @ halftime. Look for another big game outta #12 & #17. #25 Has been somewhat quite on the offensive side of the game thus far this season. He along with Tyler Rowe seemed to make somewhat of an impact last season leading the way for a talented Luke Keller during the season. But with all the weapons Coach Crabtree & staff has been blessed with any team facing Valley is sure to see a mixed bag of talent in that backfield. I don't see any reason why Valley can not repeat the goal that they did last season....winning the SOC 2 Championship and into the playoffs. ROLL TRIBE!!!!!!!!!!! :aaaaa59

[nutronron2012]

Valley has been using a steady diet of RBs #17, #25, #21, #15 and QB who will flat run just about anyone over 1 on 1. Thats a pretty good mix of runners when you have 5 very talented runners who can gain alot of yards. Now we just need to mix in a few passes here and there just to keep the defense honest. Valley will score in the 50's tonight easily and South Point will probably have a couple scores late.
Valley 56
South Point 13

[LICKING COUNTY FAN]

TIME WARNER use to carry all five of the Valley games on their ondemand feature.Does anyone know why they stopped doing this?

[Jesco White]

For what it's worth to eliminate all false "memories" of Valley's lack of playoff appearances in the '90s, the following is Valley's record by year in the '90s:

1990 (Crabtree's 1st year): 1-9
1991: 2-8
1992: 10-0, SOC I Champs, aforementioned playoff miss (5th in the region)
1993: 9-1, SOC I Co-Champs
1994: 7-3
1995: 8-2
1996: 10-1, SOC I Champs, undefeated regular season, lost to Bellaire in playoffs
1997: 11-1, SOC I Champs, undefeated reg. season, def Hannibal River in Reg Semi's, lost to Amanda-Clearcreek in Reg Finals, Regional Runner-Up
1998: 10-1, SOC I Champs, undefeated regular season, lost to Nelsonville-York in playoffs
1999: 10-1, SOC I Champs, undefeated regular season, lost to Liberty Union in playoffs in Valley's first ever hosted playoff game.

So, for the decade we went 78-27 with 5 undefeated regular seasons and 4 playoff appearances. Again, as has been explained too many times already, we only missed the playoffs at 10-0 ONCE and that was during the time period when only 4-teams per region qualified. There have been several other teams throughout the state do the same thing before and since...including during the current 8-team format. I hope this helps folks keep facts straight moving forward. The sad thing is I rattled every single detail of this post from memory alone lol Feel free to look it up if you doubt me, but you'll be wasting your time because I'm right......due to the countless hours of research Crab's Bro and I have put into our school's football history

[starbase_318]

due to the countless hours of research Crab's Bro and I have put into our school's football history

Do you have a web page?

[Jesco White]

We are working on it. Hopefully we'll have it up and functional soon. Crab's Bro and I are both to blame......along with "Mrs. Jesco White" and "Mrs. Crab's Bro" ;)

I'll get ahold of you via Facebook after we iron out some details.