I think we both say that as somewhat of a.hyperbole. It's just that on paper with Medina having a good senior qb and us bringing in a ton of new players and new qb, that's one you should be able to win
No closed enrollment school will be great every season. Unless you are really recruiting or have some monster intra district enrollment situation. Mentor has missed the playoffs a couple times in the last 10 years and had teams beaten by non eds and Iggy in region 1 as well.
Big schools like Medina and Brunswick should be able to beat Mentor at times. Not sure why they both haven't
I think for Brunswick, part of it is because they were in Region 2 so never played Mentor in their heyday since they were also in different leagues. But Brunswick would have been very competitive from the early 90s to about 2010 against Mentor if they played every year in that period (Mentor probably wins more but it would have been mostly competitive). Brunswick just happened to start playing Mentor annually when Mentor was at its peak and Brunswick was bottomed out. Still, Brunswick looks to be closing the gap but probably still away from actually winning those games.
Brunswick is a lot like Strongsville, it just sustained its success a couple years longer and unlike Strongsville never had to face the R1 gauntlet up until a couple years ago (and moving forward still has the better demographics to get back to the top level). Anyway, Strongsville and Mentor have been regulars on the schedule for over 20 years now and it was competitive up until the last 10 or so (and still for whatever reason Strongsville still gives Mentor a "tougher" time than the other westside schools). With that, there were years when Strongsville lost to both in the same fashion, you just didn't get a Brunswick-Mentor matchup unless both made the state semifinals (which i believe did happen once).
So timing plays a part in Brunswick vs. Mentor.
As for Medina, its simple. It wasn't until the early 2000s before it was a school that had the demographics to compete. From there, the football program was never able to build consistently to be one that maybe every 4 to 5 years has a team that could pop up and surprise somebody. That was despite being very strong in other sports, including both basketball and track, two sports that you would think translate to football (hence the sleeping giant moniker which has been around now for like 20 years).
Anyway, speaking of sleeping giants, wasn't that what Mentor would have been considered in the 80s and 90s of there was the internet and message boards?
It wasn't until "the class" in what 2001 that really springboarded Mentor into what it is now. Medina, IMO, has a chance at doing something similar. They actually made the playoffs a year earlier than I think most expected. Last year is was what I thought this year's team would do (make the playoffs and be somewhat competitive against a marquee title contending team).
Since they did that a year earlier, now upping the expectations for this year. But still its 2021 that is the one where all along could be Medina's version of "the class". You follow that up with what should be a good team in 2022 (and potentially four straight playoff appearances) and now you have something building that can trickle down to the lower levels.
I will say this, in football (basketball will be fine regardless and has even higher upside there) if this 2022 and 2023 class (probably the best two in school history that happen to be b2b) don't do anything, then yeah. Medina will never get there.