Quality over quantity: Five-win football teams reach playoffs
“I couldn’t be prouder of this 5-5 bunch. This is the best coaching job our staff has done.”
Typically, a 5-5 season would not go over particularly well at tradition-steeped football programs such as Gahanna, Olentangy and Westerville Central.
But each year is unique and in 2018 a mediocre record was still deemed worthy of a playoff spot, based on the computer ratings system used by the Ohio High School Athletic Association. Thirty central Ohio teams were among 224 statewide to make the playoffs. Nine of the 224 had .500 records.
“If you had told me in August that we were going to be 5-5, I wouldn’t have been too happy and I certainly wouldn’t have thought we’d still be a playoffcaliber team,” Gahanna coach Bruce Ward said. “But there are always circumstances in play that alter that mindset and tell you we’re a better team than our Olentangy coach Mark Solis
record indicates.”
Gahanna lost a pair of standouts in quarterback Michael Lowery and defensive lineman Karter Johnson via transfer after last season and subsequently started this season 0-2. But four of its five wins came over teams with a .500 or better record, one being a 10-7 win over Reynoldsburg (9-1) that resulted in a bonanza of computer points.
“The thing that set us in motion was a (4140) double-overtime win at New Albany,” Ward said. “Since then, defense has been the backbone of our team.”
Olentangy was facing a rebuilding season after losing 35 players in grades 9 to 11 to first-year Olentangy Berlin and dropping to Division II.
“We started 1-4 and I was just trying to figure out how not to be fired,” said coach Mark Solis, adding that he was joking. “But I told another reporter if there’s such a thing as being a good 1-4 team, we were that. Our schedule was brutal and we were playing those teams tough.
“There was a lot of frustration at that time, but our culture allowed us to win four of the last five and gain a share of our conference title and make it back to the playoffs. I couldn’t be prouder of this 5-5 bunch. This is the best coaching job our staff has done. We weren’t afforded the luxury of playing players one way like we had before.”
Olentangy beat three 7-3 playoff qualifiers and three of its losses were by seven or fewer points.
Westerville Central lost five of its final seven games, including the finale to Olentangy, but still managed to reach the playoffs. The chief reason: The Warhawks earned a bundle of computer points with nonleague wins over 9-1 playoff qualifiers Whitehall and Eastmoor Academy.
“I realize that 5-5 doesn’t sound very good, but we lost three games by a total of seven points,” firstyear coach Brent Morrison said. “A play here or a play there, we could easily be 8-2. Anybody we played would probably tell you that we’re a better team than our record shows.”
While the three .500 teams may have been fortunate to make the playoffs, Canal Winchester was one of only two 9-1 teams (New Middletown Springfield being the other) not to qualify. Nine 8-2 teams also were left home.