EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a four-part seris on the expansion of Ohio’s high school football playoff system.
ASHLAND — Before he was the highly successful head football coach at Division II Ashland University, Lee Owens was a decorated high school football coach.
The Madison graduate spent time at Crestview, Galion, Lancaster and Massillon Washington before eventually breaking into the college game as an assistant at Ohio State in the 1990s. He spent nine seasons as the head coach at Division I Akron before landing at AU, where he has been for the past 16 seasons.
In 11 seasons as a high school coach, Owens amassed a record of 89-32-2 with five playoff appearances and one state championship. His 1985 Galion team was a perfect 14-0, knocking off Youngstown Cardinal Mooney 6-0 in the Division II title game at Ohio Stadium. It stands as the only high school football title won by a north central Ohio school in the playoff era.
Were it not for an expansion of the playoff format by the Ohio High School Athletic Association, the ’85 Tigers never would have hoisted the championship trophy.
The OHSAA announced in May it would expand the playoffs again in the fall of 2021. The new format will allow for 12 teams per region to qualify for the postseason instead of eight.
The OHSAA’s 1985 expansion allowed the top four teams from each region to qualify for the playoffs instead of just the top two. Galion qualified as the No. 4 seed in Division II, Region 6.
The Tigers opened the playoffs with a 26-13 win over Toledo DeVilbiss in the regional semifinals, followed by a 24-13 victory over Avon Lake in the regional finals. Galion beat Cincinnati Greenhills 14-10 in the state semifinals.
“If it’s a year before, we go 10-0 and don’t get in again,” Owens said. “This is a team that runs the table in the playoffs and beats Mooney in the state championship game.
“I’m still close to a lot of those players and I see what it’s done in their lives. I think back and what if that hadn’t happened and they didn’t have that opportunity?”
It’s an opportunity Owens’ 1982 Crestview team never was afforded. The Cougars were 10-0 in Owens’ second and final season in charge of the Cougars.
At the time, only the top two teams from each region qualified for the playoffs. Crestview finished third in Region 17 of Division V behind Ashtabula St. John and Mingo Junction. St. John would win the regional title before falling to eventual state champ Newark Catholic in the state semifinals.
In 10 regular season games, the Cougars allowed 13 points and posted eight shutouts. Led by quarterback Rod Bernhard and running back Curtis Reed, Crestview outscored opponents 269-13.
“Not only were we 10-0, we had eight shutouts. Two teams scored against us,” Owens said. “We thought we had a chance to win it all and we would have loved to have a shot at it.
“We knew we were good enough to play with anybody and we didn’t get that opportunity. It really hurt at the end of the year.”
The playoff era dawned in 1972 when the Ohio High School Athletic Association adopted Jack Harbin’s computer ratings system. Before then, state champions were determined by the Associated Press writers poll and the United Press International coaches poll. The polls were largely a beauty contest and Harbin, a cash register repairman and former assistant coach at Wickliffe High School, sought a more equitable way to crown a champion.
The original playoff format allowed for only 12 total playoff qualifiers. At the time, there were three enrollment classes (AAA, AA, A) and four geographical regions within each class. The top finisher in each region advanced directly to the state semifinals.
The first expansion came in the fall of 1980. The OHSAA shifted from three enrollment classes to five Divisions (Division I including the biggest school and Division V the smallest). The top two teams in each region qualified, meaning 40 teams advanced to the playoffs instead of 12.
“I graduated from high school in 1980, back when nobody got to the playoffs for the most part,” Clear Fork coach Dave Carroll said. “They took four teams in three classes.”
Clear Fork was 9-1 during Carroll’s junior year in 1978 and 8-2 the following year, winning the Johnny Appleseed Crown in ’79. The Colts never finished higher than ninth in the Class AA, Region 6 rankings.
An All-Ohioan for the Colts as a senior, Carroll played collegiately at Muskingum before embarking on a coaching career that is entering its fifth decade this fall.
“I’ve been around for a long time and I used to say, every time they would expand (the playoffs), ‘Oh, gosh, they’re watering it down,’ ” Carroll said. “As I got older I realized it’s not about a team that I played on or coached that made it or didn’t quite make it.
“I’ve coached through all those eras and whatever era it is, whether it was when four teams made the playoffs or eight teams or now 12 teams, everybody gets excited. The community gets excited. The kids get excited. The student body gets excited. And it promotes football.”
The 1985 expansion that allowed Galion to reach the playoffs and ultimately win the state crown lasted until 1993. The OHSAA added a sixth enrollment division for the 1994 season, bumping the number of playoff qualifiers from 80 to 96.
Mansfield Senior coach Chioke Bradley was a star defensive back and receiver for the Tygers during the early 1990s, helping Senior High reach the playoffs for the first time in program history as a senior in 1993. The Tygers never finished below 12th in the regional rankings during Bradley’s three varsity seasons, but had only one playoff appearance to show for it.
“We finished 11th or 12th in our region,” said Bradley, who led Senior High to the Division III state championship game last fall. “You never know what’s going to happen once you get there.”
In 1999, the OHSAA expanded the playoffs to take the top eight teams in each region. The number of playoff qualifiers doubled from 96 to 192. A seventh enrollment division was added in 2013, which brought the number of playoff qualifiers to 224.
“My concern was about watering it down, making the postseason experience less special,” said Lucas coach Scott Spitler, who piloted the Cubs to the Division VII state championship game last fall. “As sure as I’m saying that, I guarantee you that when we went from four to eight teams per region, there were people saying the same thing. ‘If we go to eight, we’re going to water it down.’ ”
Spitler has guided the Cubs to the playoffs each of the past six seasons. Had the new expansion format been in place, Lucas also would have qualified in 2013 after finishing 10th in Region 23 with a 4-6 record.
“We’ve been very fortunate. Our kids have done a nice job over the last few years and we’ve had a nice run,” Spitler said. “My perspective might have been a little bit different prior to our run.”
Hillsdale coach Trevor Cline welcomes the expanded playoff format. A 2012 Hillsdale graduate, Cline quarterbacked the Falcons to a regional runner-up finish as a junior, then saw his dream of a return to the playoffs stolen away a year later. The Falcons let a late lead slip away in the final minutes of a 33-22 loss to Norwayne in the regular season finale.
It was Hillsdale’s only loss of the season and cost the Falcons a berth in the Division V, Region 19 playoffs.
“I like the idea of going to 12 playoff teams and some of that is speaking from experience,” Cline said. “My senior year we went 9-1 and were sitting at No. 9 in the final regional rankings.”
Hillsdale was one of just four teams in the state to go 9-1 and miss the playoffs in 2011. The Falcons would have qualified in the other three Division V regions.
Norwayne, meanwhile, used the win over Hillsdale as a springboard to the Division IV state championship. The Bobcats beat Kenton and record-setting quarterback Maty Mauk 48-42 in the finals.
“We felt, as a group, we could have made a run that year. Part of that is because of the success we had the year before,” Cline said. “Then to see what Norwayne did in Division IV, it was frustrating. They went on to win a state championship and we were on the outside looking in.”
The Wayne County Athletic League is traditionally one of the strongest small-school conferences in the state. The eight-team league has sent at least three schools to the playoffs in four of the past five seasons.
“I’m all for taking 12 because usually, coming through the WCAL, we face tough tests throughout the year,” Cline said. “If we get in, we feel like we have a real shot of advancing.”