October 27, 2023 Hamilton Township 34 - 55 Miami Trace

[VetteMan]

Congrats Panthers on a great win tonight. Good luck in the second round.

[Old_Timer_21]

Surprised by the margin of victory, but not by the outcome. Hamilton Twp, while a good team, was not as good as people made them out to be. They were a product of their schedule (SOS was 90 out of 106 D3 teams). That's bad. Although they'll look good on paper, HT has had much better football teams in the past. The BC game was that programs super bowl and the Fairfield County fair happened to be the same week. They play again, BC win's 8 out of 10 times. Trace played in a better conference, against better opponents and I knew it would show. They'll have their hands full against Watterson. Bad first round for the MSL outside of BC. I wonder why, outside of BC, the MSL Buckeye just doesn't produce good football teams anymore?

[formerfcfan]

I wonder why, outside of BC, the MSL Buckeye just doesn't produce good football teams anymore?

I’m not optimistic it’s going to get any better. There’s a lot to tackle in this discussion, IMO.

My general theory is the Buckeye concept has jumped the shark. Backfilling Canal Winchester with Liberty Union may have been the worst move the MSL has made. The Lions even went four straight years recently without playing a Buckeye Division schedule. Dan Johnson himself said it was a terrible mistake, then, to join the Buckeye with the configuration LU was stepping into.

Numbers had been bad at some of the schools (FU and LU come to mind.) CV stuck in the mud. Amanda… just a generally chaotic, or at least difficult situation. All of those things put together increase the burden when you’re already playing for second place most years, these days.