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The Blitz Show: Week 7
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Earlier this week, I called Salem High football coach Mike Kopachy to chat about the Quakers’ turnaround from an 0-10 team last year to a 4-2 team this year.
He sent me this response via text message: “Im leary on the call back. vindy cover jinx?”
(Kopachy’s e-mail signature lists him as a “teacher of English,” which gives me the license to poke fun of poor grammar and spelling.)
We traded calls again, and he left this voice mail: “Hopefully you forgot about me and picked another team so we don’t have the kiss of death.”
Sorry, Mike. You and the Quakers can’t hide anymore.
When Kopachy left Western Reserve to take the Salem job in the offseason — leaving behind a loaded Blue Devils team he helped build — I was among those who thought, “Is he crazy?”
Most coaches leave after a talented senior class graduates, not before. And they certainly don’t leave to take over programs that went 0-10 the year before.
“Well, it was a very tough decision,” he said. “I was pretty torn because obviously I was very close to a lot of people at Western Reserve. At the same time, I didn’t know when this opportunity would happen again.
“A lot of people saw the 0-10 record and said, ‘Why would anybody want that?’ But I saw a school with great facilities, a community that really had a lot of resources to get behind the football program and an established weight program. And obviously, with me living here and being three minutes away instead of 25-30 helped. It ended up being a tough decision, but one I had to make.”
Kopachy, a 1997 Chaney High graduate who served as an assistant under Ron Berdis for five seasons, was hired as Reserve’s head coach in 2003 when he was 23. Over the next six years, he turned around a struggling program and won a league title and earned two playoff berths.
“I was just looking to be a coach somewhere and it just happened that the job was open,” Kopachy said of Reserve. “I didn’t think I’d ever want to do something like that [rebuilding] again.”
Kopachy got an inkling of the team’s potential in June — junior QB Trent Toothman was a returning starter and speedy receiver Ben Eisel was faster than ever after missing last year with an injury — and saw it firsthand when the Quakers went toe-to-toe with Girard in a 42-34 Week 1 loss.
“That’s when they realized we could play with the big boys,” said Kopachy. “Some people saw it as a moral victory but there was disappointment in the kids’ eyes.”
Since then, they’ve won four of five, with an ugly 42-0 loss to Hubbard the only blemish.
“We’re in uncharted territory,” Kopachy said. “They’ve never tasted anything like this and it’s difficult to see how they’ll react. We beat West Branch for the first time in forever and then we came out and laid an egg against Hubbard. Then we played well against Liberty.
“We just need to be more consistent.”
Salem plays Struthers (1-5) and Beaver Local (0-6) the next two weeks — “I get really nervous when I face a team that has nothing to lose,” Kopachy said — before a huge game against Lakeview (4-2) in Week 9 and a finale with East Liverpool (2-4).
If the Quakers win out — and they’ll be favored in three of those games — they could make their first playoff appearance in school history. Coaches hate to talk about anything but the next game, but Kopachy admits it’s a team goal.
“At the beginning of the year, we listed a bunch of goals we wanted to achieve and we’ve achieved a lot of them already,” he said. “But each week is a playoff game for us. It’s in the back of our minds, but our only concern right now is the Struthers Wildcats.”
Of the teams in our coverage area, only East, Jackson-Milton, Salem, Sebring, Southern, United and Youngstown Christian have never made the playoffs. “It would kind of be a storybook ending,” Kopachy said. “We have great kids and they’ve made the transition so smooth. I’m not just talking about great players; we have good players but they’re just great kids. They come to work every day, they work their [butt] off and they’re good people off the field.
“Sometimes it’s better to be around those kind than a bunch of jerks who have the talent to be unbelievable.”
Power poll
My apologies to Hubbard fans (whose team won 35-0 and moved down), but Boardman’s win over Hoover was too impressive to ignore. Crestview switches places with East Palestine after Friday’s big win.
Big schools (Division I-III): 1. Mooney, 2. Fitch, 3. Poland, 4. Howland, 5. Boardman. Honorable mention: Hubbard, Warren Harding, Canfield.
Small schools (Division IV-VI): 1. Ursuline, 2. Girard, 3. Crestview, 4. McDonald, 5. Lakeview. Honorable mention: East Palestine, Western Reserve, Mineral Ridge.
Other thoughts
- This could be the year Girard wins its first regional title.
The Indians went 9-1 last season but missed the playoffs because they were stuck in arguably the best region in the state. But with Mooney, Steubenville and Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary all moving up to Div. III, Region 13 is wide open.
- How much fun is the Federal League?
A lot of leagues like to say that anyone can beat anyone, but it’s actually true in the Federal League, where only one unbeaten team (Canton GlenOak) remains. And I’d be surprised if the Eagles make it through the next four weeks without a loss.
- Mineral Ridge has one of the area’s most underrated concession stands.
They sent up a bunch of free food to John Caparanis when he was broadcasting last week’s game against Springfield and I scored some free mozzarella sticks.
Note to schools looking for coverage: It’s never a bad idea to put some food in the press box.
- Don’t forget to vote in the Blitz Reader’s Poll!
It’s open for a few more days. Visit www.vindy.com/blitz and look in the top right corner for the poll icon.
Joe Scalzo covers high school football for The Vindicator. Write to him at scalzo@vindy.com.