Struthers Wildcats 2023

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The cats come off of a 7-5 season. Last season was disappointing in the beginning of the season and pretty good at the end of the season. Cats return most of their starters and get their starting quarterback back from injury that he suffered in the preseason of 2022.

Schedule
08/18 A East Liverpool Beaver Local
08/25 A Geneva
09/01 H Brookville (PA)
09/08 A Girard
09/15 H Canfield South Range
09/22 H Hubbard
09/29 A Cortland Lakeview
10/06 H Youngstown East
10/13 H Niles McKinley
10/20 A Poland Seminary

The schedule for the Wildcats is pretty difficult this season as they play 6 straight playoff teams and end with rival Poland week 10. Thoughts
 
 
Struthers is a very strong contender this year for the NE8 and Region 13. Big game in week 5. It all depends upon if Dukes can recover from his injury. He won't play any defense. Next couple of years look bright for the Wildcats.
 
Expectations are high. I’ll do an early pick of the schedule

beaver local- toss up. At BL. They got a good qb. Week 1. Who knows
geneva- toss up. At Geneva. Weird wing t offense. Beat us last season.
brookville- W- pa football isn’t great, and they aren’t great based off of what I’ve seen.
Girard- toss up. Always a good game. Sims is a game breaker. If I absolutely had to commit here I’d say cats though.
South range- Toss up. Cats played lights out on defense last season and if they offense had a pulse would’ve pulled the upset. Range loses a lot. Games at Struthers.
hubbard- toss up. The cats have lost to Hubbard recently when they had a much better team. Like last year. And 2019. Cats are better. Should win.
Lakeview, east, Niles. Wins. Don’t expect them to be close games.
poland- win. Program has lost its identity and pav coaches a soft brand of football. Don’t expect much from the dogs for a few seasons.

So 5-5 minimum. 10-0 is possible but will be tough.
 
The O-Line got better as the season progressed last year. They'll have to replace Clyde at center (DE too). It would be nice to have or develop a kicker. Things seem to be looking up, so as long as the guys continue to work hard in the weight room and keep their grades up. Fall can't come fast enough
 
The O-Line got better as the season progressed last year. They'll have to replace Clyde at center (DE too). It would be nice to have or develop a kicker. Things seem to be looking up, so as long as the guys continue to work hard in the weight room and keep their grades up. Fall can't come fast enough
I think there’s 2 kids that can kick that are gonna be going after the job, sophomores I believe, neither have played football tho
 
Here's a familiar face to start the scrimmages out:

Fri Aug 4 10:00 AM


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West Branch Local Schools - West Branch

West Branch Local Schools
Clinton Heacock Stadium



Pretty good indicator of how well we've progressed by that time.

Go Cats!
 
Braham broke the single season tackle record while battling injury the end of the year being held out of the playoff game, along with Carter will anchor both the defense and the backfield carrying the ball.

not sure if dukes will be at safety as well as QB, but the team all around should be solid and there isn’t a game that’s not winnable on the schedule
0% chance to beat the Raiders as do most other teams in the league
 
I'm sure some will say because South Range won a state title, they are favorites in the NE8 until someone knocks them off. But those who are knowledgeable of the league (and not looking for attention) know that Struthers should be the league favorites this year.
 
2022 Honors…


Offense…
Gryzb was 1st team All NE8 Athlete, 1st team All District RB and 2nd team All State RB. Notable that he earned All District and All State honors at a position that I don’t think he played a single down at in 4 years. I’ve never seen that done before. Pretty cool.
Ekoniak was 2nd team All NE8 WR.
Sanchez was 2nd team All NE8 RB and 2nd team All District RB.
Clyde was 2nd team All NE8 OL.
Carter was 1st team All NE8 RB.

Nothing to add about Dukes. Looking forward to finally seeing him in action. Howard is a good backup.
Carter and Braham both back at RB. Again, not much to add. they’re both proven. Macleod runs hard and I presume will have a similar role to what Braham had early last year. Casey is another RB to keep an eye on.
Scary to think that the offense can lose guys like Gryzb, Sanchez, Ekoniak, Farina, etc. And still be better. But do return 3/4 of top RBs. 3/5 of starting OL. Carcelli should have a breakout year as the #1 receiver. And Dukes is coming back from injury.

Defense…
Farina was 1st team All NE8 DB, 1st team All District DB and Honorable Mention All State DB.
Braham was 1st team All NE8 LB, 1st team All District LB and 3rd team All State LB.
Carter was 1st team All District DB and 3rd team All State DB. Was also 1st team All NE8 DB in 2020 and 2021.

The defense should also be better, Led by the front 7. 6 of which are returning. Will need to replace 3/4 of the secondary, but they should have plenty of guys ready to step up.
 
I'm sure some will say because South Range won a state title, they are favorites in the NE8 until someone knocks them off. But those who are knowledgeable of the league (and not looking for attention) know that Struthers should be the league favorites this year.

SR does lose a lot. Also have a lot returning. I think it’ll be a 3 or 4 team race, with Struthers, South Range and Girard. And possibly Hubbard or Poland.
Struthers is the favorite, though.
 
It's definitely more wide open in 2023, IMO. Last year I would have been shocked if SR lost in the league. This year I agree that Struthers is probably the favorite, but only slightly -- there are 3-4 others that, if they won, wouldn't shock me. If I had to bet now, I'd actually be a little more inclined to bet on "co-champs" than "outright champs".

But, Struthers is definitely the team with the fewest question marks.

*South Range -- what is the offense going to look like w/o a true passing game?
*Girard -- will they show any interest in stopping someone on defense?
*Hubbard -- will they continue the transition to viable post-1970s offense or revert, and if they do, will it work?
*Poland -- can they find an identity that meshes with their talent?

Those aren't the only questions, btw, but the ones that jumped to my mind right away for each team.
 
SR does lose a lot. Also have a lot returning. I think it’ll be a 3 or 4 team race, with Struthers, South Range and Girard. And possibly Hubbard or Poland.
Struthers is the favorite, though.
I'd say its a two way race between SR and Struthers. IMO Girard, Hubbard and Poland are all in the next tier the you have Niles and Lakeview.

With 16 teams making the playoffs, I can see 4-5 teams making it into the postseason.
 
Run heavy teams are usually the teams who give Niles and girard problems, girard will have just as good an offense as any I believe.

for Struthers I don’t think you’ll see anyone carrying the ball in a meaningful snap other then AC/devin/Jason. Recievers you’ll have carcelli/derose and I would guess they’ll use less 3 WR sets this year but others can emerge as a WR. The concern will be at corner, second half of the season teams wouldn’t throw at farina at all, it helped the defense a ton, even the WB game they stayed away from him and went at the LB over the middle. Hearing the OL have been putting in a ton of work and are getting bigger and stronger. Need to find a kicker or put some 2pt packages together because we had issues with it last year missing way too many XP. The freshmen RB I would put back to return kicks he’s a grown up in a freshmen body, if he can keep his head on straight he’s going to be ridiculous
Grzyb did well on XP's last year. Besides everything else he did. Always frustrates me on kickoffs, when the other team starts on their own 40, so the kicking frustrates me.
 
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