St. Paul’s Ripley a big believer in shot at repeat
St. Paul’s coach Scott Ripley laughs when he says there’s not too much pressure on him as he takes over as head coach of the 2019 Maryland Big 33 football team.
After Maryland scored a rare win in the Big 33 Classic series with Pennsylvania on June 16, Ripley is thinking about how he’ll build the team that he hopes will repeat for the first time in the state’s history in the series.
“I’ve been coaching for over 20 years and it’s just an honor to coach in this game and the chance of winning back-to-back for the first time — no pressure there,” Ripley said with a laugh.
Ripley’s extensive coaching experience includes guiding Cardinal Gibbons to the
2000 Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference championship. After the school closed, he went on to assist with several championship teams at Loyola Blakefield and St. Paul’s before taking over the Crusaders last fall.
Ripley is vice president of the Maryland Football Coaches Association, which runs the Big 33 Classic along with the Pennsylvania Football Coaches Association. For the past six years, he has served as team director, so he’s had plenty of experience with the Big 33 system. He said there might be a “combine type of tryout” in early August with the main tryouts soon after the high school football season ends.
He’s already pegged some of the players he’d like to have on the team.
“My theory is we’re going to start recruiting right now. We paid to have a marketing group come up [to Harrisburg] and put together a three-to-five minute video about the game. We’re going to reach out to the kids and tell them we’re interested in having them participate.”
Ripley also said Big 33 officials are working to move the game to Memorial Day weekend next year, so more of the top players can participate. Many of the best players headed to Football Bowl Subdivision programs must report to college before the game is played in mid-June. Maryland and Pennsylvania officials considered making the move for 2018 but didn’t for several reasons, including that not enough host families were available for the players. Ripley said he believes the change will happen in 2019 and he’s recruiting accordingly.
On June 16 in Harrisburg, Maryland defeated Pennsylvania, 9-6, in the only game in Big 33 history that did not include a touchdown. River Hill’s Cooper McGeehan kicked all three field goals, including the 39-yard game-winner with10.5 seconds left.
Milford Mill’s Brandon Savage earned Most Valuable Player honors for the Maryland team after making an interception in the end zone and recovering a fumble.
Although Ripley would like to have some of the top players on the team, he said McGeehan, who plans to try to walk on at Pittsburgh, and Savage, who is headed to Norfolk State, are the kinds of strong players the team needs to win.
“We’ve noticed that we do not need the superstar players,” he said. “What we need is 38 guys who can play together as a team. They can fill in the pieces of the puzzle. We need kids who want to play, who want to represent the state of Maryland and who want to work hard.”
Since the series resumed in 2013, Maryland has won only twice. In 2014, Maryland won in double overtime. The original series between Maryland and Pennsylvania ended in 1992 after eight years, and Pennsylvania played Ohio during the years in between. Overall, Pennsylvania, which has about 500 high schools with football programs compared with Maryland’s 300, leads the series 9-4.