Steubenville's Travels (Or Lack Thereof)

[dean martin1]

Said it before, Steubenville’s economy is more tied into Pittsburgh or Pennsylvania than into Ohio. We are more and more becoming a suburb of Pittsburgh as the city continues to move west near the airport. (18 miles from Steubenville). So the obvious question what those this have to do with Big Red schedule.
well let’s take it by N.E.W.S

North:
BR vs. Mooney. Home and home. Match up lost it’s shine of late, but a traditional powerhouse none the less. Grade C-

Fitch vs BR. BR traveled to Fitch losing on the road in OT. No return visit by Fitch Grade B

Massillon vs BR should be played most
Years. Big bro, little brother game. Grade D for not playing, most years.

Overall North of Steubenville: C

East: Wva and Pittsburgh
BR vs Wheeling park (wva) home and home, park is always competitive and one of the biggest schools in the state. Grade A

The bigger Pittsburgh schools usually get locked into conference play after week 1, so playing home and home proves difficult or just doesn’t make sense.
Overall East of Steubenville, grade B
Geographically limited

West
BR vs Dover , BR vs New Philly. Both home and home. Grade: Solid A.

overall west of Steubenville, grade: A

south:
St. Clairsviile refused to re up the home and home contract. Nothing BR can do, No real school that move the needle, until reaching Cbus.
BR vs desales. Home and home. Grade A
BR vs Olt. Liberty, possible home and home, Grade A

Overall south of Steubenville, grade A.

Really not bad…but more than being the winningest coach in the history of Ohio football at any level. Coach Reno is the best scheduler in state. Like it or not.

 

[Thavoice]

Man, Steubenville AD must be brutal! They actually bully them to play in Steubenville? They don’t even make any money from it? They are acquiescing just so they don’t get a wedgie or their books slapped out of their hands?

Nah.
Just the arrogance of 'if ya wanna play us, you have to come here and we wont return the favor'.

Goes against the good nature of High School Athletics, but hey they have a lucrative racket going on there. I dont blame 'em and instead those who continually line up to go there and play without a return trip.

 

[dean martin1]

Nah.
Just the arrogance of 'if ya wanna play us, you have to come here and we wont return the favor'.

Goes against the good nature of High School Athletics, but hey they have a lucrative racket going on there. I dont blame 'em and instead those who continually line up to go there and play without a return trip.

The post above shows 5 return trips since last year. New philly, Dover, Mooney , wheeling park, and desales….but any school can do the same. Let me show you how !

1. Leave you conference affiliation, become
An independent
2. Pay teams well to travel to your
Stadium.
( it helps having 5000k presold season
ticket holders, like big red).
Also , top notch facilities make attracting
teams a lot easier).
3. AD and coach make the schedule to
accommodate playoff aspirations and to
keep season tickets home and happy.

Pretty easy. Not breaking any rules, just takes tradition, facilities, money, season tix holders and willingness of the school, coach, and community.

 

[algernonsidney]

I totally understand the desire to play teams that have similar stadiums. I know Big Red had some home-and-home contracts with Weir years ago, and they had a lot less seats than you all. Wheeling Park has something similar since they play on Wheeling Island. East Liverpool also has a good site, and Big Red had at least one playoff game there as a neutral site.

Some schools like the Pittsburgh city schools and Linsly are happy to trade home games for cash. The Youngstown and Cleveland city schools have also done this. Big Red used to play a lot of Youngstown schools, and there used to be a lot more of them.

 

[Fumblerooski]

The post above shows 5 return trips since last year. New philly, Dover, Mooney , wheeling park, and desales….but any school can do the same. Let me show you how !

1. Leave you conference affiliation, become
An independent
2. Pay teams well to travel to your
Stadium.
( it helps having 5000k presold season
ticket holders, like big red).
Also , top notch facilities make attracting
teams a lot easier).
3. AD and coach make the schedule to
accommodate playoff aspirations and to
keep season tickets home and happy.

Pretty easy. Not breaking any rules, just takes tradition, facilities, money, season tix holders and willingness of the school, coach, and community.

This honestly sounds a lot like Dover. Ever since the ECOL imploded, they’ve been trending more and more towards a Steubenville-like schedule. Hell, Friday’s game against Aurora will be their 10th home game this year. The only away game played was week 2 at Canfield.

 

[dean martin1]

I decided to look up something. I went all the way back to 1961 and counted all the regular-season games that Steubenville has played away from home. As many may have guessed here, it's not very many. Fortunately, it's all pretty easy to get if you just go to Roll Red Roll. Kudos to MANOWAR for keeping up a great web site:

http://www.rollredroll.com/results6180.htm

Anyway, here are the numbers from 1961. These are all ten-game seasons:

1961 - 2
1962 - 2
1963 - 2
1964 - 2
1965 - 3
1966 - 1
1967 - 3
1968 - 3
1969 - 3
1970 - 2
1971 - 3
1972 - 2
1973 - 3
1974 - 2
1975 - 3
1976 - 2
1977 - 3
1978 - 3
1979 - 3
1980 - 3
1981 - 2
1982 - 1
1983 - 2
1984 - 2
1985 - 2
1986 - 3
1987 - 1
1988 - 2
1989 - 2
1990 - 2
1991 - 2
1992 - 1
1993 - 3
1994 - 1
1995 - 3
1996 - 2
1997 - 2
1998 - 3
1999 - 3
2000 - 3
2001 - 3
2002 - 4
2003 - 3
2004 - 2 (1N)
2005 - 3
2006 - 3
2007 - 3
2008 - 3
2009 - 2 (1N)
2010 - 1 (1N)
2011 - 2
2012 - 2
2013 - 4
2014 - 1
2015 - 3
2016 - 2

Here are the totals is by decade:
61-70 - 77-23-0
71-80 - 73-27-0
81-90 - 81-19-0
91-00 - 77-23-0
01-10 - 70-27-3
11-16 - 44-16-0

So, in 56 years, that is 422 home games, 135 road games, and 3 games at neutral sites. That averages to 7.53571428 home games, 2.41071428 road games, and .053571428 games at neutral sites. In 560 games, it's slightly over 75% at home (420 would be exactly 75%).

This all started when I first looked up their road games more than two hours away. In 56 years, it's FIVE:

1995 Mansfield
1997 Chardon
1999 Chillicothe
2000 Chardon
2008 Columbus Watterson

Yes, this is a little more arbitrary. Where is the cutoff for two hours exactly? This does not count games in Akron, Canton, or Zanesville. Of course, this also does not count any road games when they were a member of a conference which included Massillon Washington, Canton McKinley, Niles McKinley, Alliance, and Warren Harding.

So, here are my questions for everyone else:

In the last 56 years, has anybody in Ohio played more home games?
Has anybody played a higher percentage of home games?
Has anybody went 56 years without ever playing a schedule of five home games and five road games?
Has anybody played only two seasons with four games on the road?

NOTE: The bold print indicates a repeating decimal. I like to be exact.

What is wrong. No rules being broken. You team is welcomed to schedule the same way as well. Let me show you how.

1. Have your team separate from any
conference affiliation, basically become an
independent.
2. You need “money lots of money” to entice
opponents to travel, it helps having the
following:
A. Big Red has approx. 5000k season tix
holders
B. You need to have a winning tradition,
keeping the fan base engaged
C. You need top notch facility to make
attracting opponents easier

3. AD and coach must work
together to schedule for playoff
aspirations as well as keeping the
fan base home and happy.

I’ll leave you with this.
Everybody is welcome to follow this blue print. Easy as 1, 2, 3. But, stop acting like it’s unfair, it’s just smarter…and before you make any excuses ask yourself, why aren’t we doing that? Then change it. Otherwise, complaining gets you no where.