Blitz to go solo in football season

Eric Wolford is exploding on the local football scene as he rebuilds the Youngstown State University program.

“No one will outwork us.”

“He reminds me of one of those stiff white guys.”

“I’ve become Eric Wolford, an overachiever who was never supposed to amount to anything.”

“He might be part werewolf. If we ever get fleas, we’re in trouble.”

And he’s colorful, as seen in the quotes above. He’s among the many intriguing aspects of the upcoming football season — a sport and a time of year that defines the Valley as much as steel and the state line.

Blitz, our coverage tribute to football, kicked off its fourth season last weekend with Blitz Coaches Corner — a quick look at key area high school teams.

We follow it up with our complete 2010 season guide Aug. 22.

It’s the start of a busy season for us in many ways.

Keeping with YSU for a minute, the retirement of hall-of-fame sportswriter Pete Mollica at the end of last season puts a new person on the YSU football beat, or “Wolford Watch,” if you will.

It’s fitting that the colorful Wolford will have reporter Joe Scalzo covering most of the games.

Joe’s colorful writing has been a reader favorite for years. It could be the best new matchup of the season.

In addition to Joe’s new position, the sports staff adds Jon Moffett. Jon’s a dedicated football guy from Trumbull County.

We’ll soon have another new face to take the place of the late John Kovach, who died last winter.

When the regular high school football season kicks off Aug. 26, we’ll also be launching our third season of the Blitz tailgate parties — our trailer full of fun that we haul out five times per year.

The two-hour sessions include video-football contests on a huge screen, video-music games, corn toss, free hot dogs and drinks and more.

Last year, we successfully added school band drum-offs between the two schools, and we hope that continues this year.

The five games we’re hoping to tailgate at are:

Aug. 27 — Lowellville @ Youngstown Christian

Sept. 17 — Liberty @ Struthers

Sept. 24 — Mineral Ridge @ South Range

Oct. 15 — Springfield Local @ Columbiana

Oct. 29 — Poland @ Canfield

Struthers, Columbiana and Youngstown Christian are new stops for us, so we’re excited for those dates, as well as renewed visits with Canfield, Poland, South Range and Mineral Ridge.

The biggest Blitz change for us is that the weekly preview section is going solo and adding some muscle.

The Blitz weekly section has been a four-page roundup that fronted our regular sports section.

This year, it’s solo. Blitz will be its own section much like our Thursday entertainment section, Vibe.

It debuts Thursday, Aug. 26 but will be at home Fridays after that first week of the prep season.

Also, though high school football will be the section anchor, we will add special pages for YSU, Ohio State, the Steelers and the Browns.

The weekly Blitz section will be the most complete source of football preview coverage for you all high- school season.

Coach Wolford looks ready.

So is The Vindicator.