Strongsville's Lou Cirino is Out

I would think Scott Miller should be the front runner for this job. Brecksville alum, one of top assistants at Padua under previous HC, QB coach this past season. Knows the ins and outs of Strongsville. Should be a no brainer
 
Auggie said:
Word is NDCL is now also looking for a football coach, could be a good match.
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Think that would be a great fit for Cirino/NDCL, especially with NDCL moving into the new smaller private school league.

I'd be a little surprised if that isn't where Cirino ends up.
 
VilleBooster said:
Well Said!!! I am so sick of this district and its holier-than-thou approach. Our board is made up of some maniacs who meddle in everything. Our superintendent has tried to get out for a different job at multiple districts (most recently Hudson and Westerville). Meanwhile he has run out some good coaches and other administrators like the guy that won the national principal of the year, who apparently wasn't good enough for strongsville. Not to mention, We just had a teacher give a lesson on some racially insensitive anti-muslim stuff, bomb threats, and our renewal levy failed.... But yea, the supt and board have nothing better to worry about than the football coach??? A guy that has given everything and more to this program?? Yea, the kids stole some stuff from the gift shop at the HOF. That is stupid kid stuff that could have happened to any coach. I don't fault Coach lou for how he handled it at all. he got the stuff back and it was returned.
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It definitely seems like they jumped on the HOF theft as the easy reason to make the move a month after the season ended.

I don't follow the ins and outs of the program, but now thanks to streams (and what I thought legitimately was a chance of a turnaround season) I was able to watch almost every game.

It was pretty clear when he turned to almost all sophomores (and even a freshmen or two) two seasons ago that it was a three-year plan.

2022: took the lumps but what can you expect when 80 percent of your starters are 14/15/16 years old?

2023: year two of the plan. Personally, I thought they could have made a bigger jump so the season was a disappointment. But the defense looked as good as I can remember in a long time from a Strongsville football team. The offense, though, looked horrible early on at full strength (ruined a great defensive performance against Avon Lake, nearly ruined a game against Solon where the defense held them to probably less than 100 total yards, and allowed for the Berea-Midpark game to get out of hand). The offense, though, seemed to get some things figured out in the Benedictine game then the QB went out for the year. There wasn't much to expect the team to do once that happened, especially going into the teeth of the schedule.

2024: The make-or-break year. Was going to be a senior dominant team (with 3 years experience) and since the younger teams have had success, you figure you can find a dozen or so contributors to fill out the depth.

Outside of early season offensive struggles and then an injury to their most important piece on that side of the ball, the plan seemed to be coming together.

The HOF theft gave the board an easy excuse to pin that on Cirino, when it had nothing to do with the coach (like you said, he made sure all the merchandise was returned when he found out some idiots on the team stole the stuff).

This is a long way of saying that while the results on the field weren't great, it did seem like there was a clear direction with 2024 being the "judge my performance from what we do there." But he wasn't able to see that out because it was easy to pin the HOF thefts on the reason to go in a different direction.

I'm torn on this as an outsider. On one hand, the varsity results were not good, so 7 years seems like enough time.

On the other hand, he had to completely rebuild a program from 7th all the way up to varsity. I don't think people understand how bad the middle school programs were when he took over. They had like 30 kids in both 7th and 8th grades out and still tried to split them with two bad teams that had 15 players on each that lost every game like 42-0. They then went down to one at each level but started winning some. That got kids to come back out and now they are back to two teams that each have 25+ kids on each and even the B teams have been competitive and the A teams among the top in the GCC.

Cirino deserves credit there for sure.

Back to the opening, from all this above, shows IMO that this is an opportunity for someone to walk into and have some immediate success and would be walking into a situation where the problems at the younger levels has already been fixed.
 
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WorkingOnIt said:
I would think Scott Miller should be the front runner for this job. Brecksville alum, one of top assistants at Padua under previous HC, QB coach this past season. Knows the ins and outs of Strongsville. Should be a no brainer
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I mentioned him earlier as well.

Strongsville people, who do you guys see as real possibilities for this job?
 
SVillegrad said:
Think that would be a great fit for Cirino/NDCL, especially with NDCL moving into the new smaller private school league.

I'd be a little surprised if that isn't where Cirino ends up.
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It’s always funny to me when guys who have been life long public schools Guys in areas with great distain for the private school model (ie. West Geauga and the other schools in that area) have no problem jumping to coach there and do it themselves.
 
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hsfan216 said:
I mentioned him earlier as well.

Strongsville people, who do you guys see as real possibilities for this job?
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I have some ties to people in the building and I know he is being considered. To what extent, I don't know.
Seems like it would be smart to go with someone on the old staff as they are returning a lot of starters and this should be a payoff year. An entirely new staff might restart the process.
 
cle440fan said:
I have some ties to people in the building and I know he is being considered. To what extent, I don't know.
Seems like it would be smart to go with someone on the old staff as they are returning a lot of starters and this should be a payoff year. An entirely new staff might restart the process.
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My question: if they go with someone already on staff, are they then "officially/unofficially" placing the theft blame on Cirino (and nobody else on staff)?

For clarity, nobody IMO on the staff should be blamed.

If they wanted continuity because next year looks promising on paper then why not let Cirino finish what he started?

If 2024 doesn't end well, then there would be zero questions for why Strongsville moved on.

FWIW, I've kind have come around from 7 years was enough time to thinking Cirino should have gotten one more year considering everything.
 
SVillegrad said:
My question: if they go with someone already on staff, are they then "officially/unofficially" placing the theft blame on Cirino (and nobody else on staff)?

For clarity, nobody IMO on the staff should be blamed.

If they wanted continuity because next year looks promising on paper then why not let Cirino finish what he started?

If 2024 doesn't end well, then there would be zero questions for why Strongsville moved on.

FWIW, I've kind have come around from 7 years was enough time to thinking Cirino should have gotten one more year considering everything.
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100% agree. Feels like they did it because they felt they had too. Which they didn't in my opinion.
 
I have always been in favor of in house candidates as stated in my previous posts. Sounds like cle440fan has the inside information with his sources inside the building. The talent is there! Haven’t seen a more talented freshman class at Strongsville since the mid 80’s.
 
hsfan216 said:
I mentioned him earlier as well.

Strongsville people, who do you guys see as real possibilities for this job?
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How about Jason Trusnik? I believe he's coaching Strongsville's Jr high. I could be wrong. He doesnt have the experience at the HS level but Im pretty sure he's well respected in the area.
 
Only ran 4.6 at Nordonia (slowest on team). Pass.

In all seriousness, he shouldn't be ruled out. But I would think the Strongsville job will draw candidates with proven varsity HC success. Not saying that's the route they have to go but I think (at least hope) this is still a job that is sought after.

They went in on the decision, just hope they do a thorough job finding the next coach... whether someone within the program or outside.
 
What about Antwan Peek?

Another former NFL player, was on the Strongsville varsity coaching staff (son went to Strongsville HS), DC at Cincinnati Princeton. ... he's back home in Cincy but has ties to Strongsville and several years of varsity football (and college) coaching experience as an assistant.
 
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SVillegrad said:
What about Antwan Peek?

Another former NFL player, was on the Strongsville varsity coaching staff (son went to Strongsville HS), DC at Cincinnati Princeton. ... he's back home in Cincy but has ties to Strongsville and several years of varsity football coaching experience as an assistant.
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Doesn't his son currently play for UC? If he does, Im sure he wouldn't be coming back to the area any time soon.
 
Gbulldog said:
Doesn't his son currently play for UC? If he does, Im sure he wouldn't be coming back to the area any time soon.
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Could be. I was just tossing it up because you mentioned Trusnik. I was thinking about other NFL guys who recently coached at Strongsville and he came to mind. I looked up and saw he was DC at Princeton (one of the better D1 schools in Ohio) so a HC job at a place he is familiar with could intrigue him.

But if he has a son at UC, yeah, probably will wait for something down there.
 
SVillegrad said:
Could be. I was just tossing it up because you mentioned Trusnik. I was thinking about other NFL guys who recently coached at Strongsville and he came to mind. I looked up and saw he was DC at Princeton (one of the better D1 schools in Ohio) so a HC job at a place he is familiar with could intrigue him.

But if he has a son at UC, yeah, probably will wait for something down there.
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Whoever it ends up being, I hope they get it right. I just heard Trusniks name early on and was kind of intrigued by it.
 
Gbulldog said:
Whoever it ends up being, I hope they get it right. I just heard Trusniks name early on and was kind of intrigued by it.
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Trusnik for sure is intriguing. I try to be consistent and remember saying that years of being in a big-time college/NFL locker-rooms isn't guaranteed to make a good coach but pulls a lot of weight (Chase Farris to Elyria Catholic).

Trusnik also has that experience and was a D3 grinder (probably same thread but something that also tends to translate to coaching).

Being the slowest guy in Nordonia is tough to overcome though (Brian, you're a legend on here lol).
 
Dumpster Fire GIF by MOODMAN
 
Per the Strongsville Board agenda for its meeting tomorrow night (February 8) it is indicated that Jason Trusnik is the "Head Football Coach - SHS".
 
bluengold said:
Being a resident of S'ville - to characterize the parochial schools as “raiding” to the detriment of Strongsville HS is a misrepresentation of the reality. I would argue that the kids at St. Joseph & John in Strongsville and in its CYO program are not destined to be Strongsville HS students. They do not ‘belong’ to Strongsville HS. For many decades, Sts. J&J has been the feeder for Padua, Holy Name, St. Ignatius, St. Ed’s (and SJA and Magnificat on the girls’ side). Many of those kids from Sts. J&J are legacies at those parochial high schools and never would consider SHS. I know that in St. Ignatius’ case, there was only 1 student from Strongsville on its varsity FB roster. Can’t speak for the other schools, but I just don’t buy into the conventional wisdom that many from Strongsville MS are being “recruited” into the parochial high schools and that is causing Strongsville to be what it is.

The reality is Strongsville’s school population is declining. Check the numbers – 20 years ago, the HS enrollment was ~2300 (for 3 grades) and for ’23-’24, the latest number published (12/1/23) for the HS is 1807 (for 4 grades). It is all about demographics (aging population in the city, young adults living elsewhere instead of returning to their ‘home' city, a birth rate decline triggered by the Great Recession of 2007-2009 - which is impacting HS enrollment now ). The housing in cities like Strongsville and Solon is saturated (no new builds) and there is no influx of new families like in Avon and some of the other exurbs. So, their school populations are declining.
There is home building taking place in Medina and Brunswick and those schools could benefit. For Brunswick though, St. Ambrose parish is the largest in the Cleveland diocese and that school's kids are likely to go to the above mentioned parochial schools + Walsh.

For Strongsville - it is what is .. and it is not "recruiting".
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He probably is referring to the John Kerr fiasco from the early 2000’s…
 
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