CRESTLINE — Crestline High School is a member of the Mid-Buckeye Conference in every sport but football, where it is an independent.
That, however, may change very soon.
For the 2019 and 2020 football seasons, the Bulldogs will play a schedule within the Blanchard Valley Conference, then the conference will decide whether the Bulldogs are a good fit for the conference, which is currently in Hancock, Putnam and Wood counties.
The Bulldogs will remain in the MBC in every sport except football. This trial is for high school football alone.
Former Crestline athletics director Matt Wade set up the trial, which became an opportunity when Shelby left the Sandusky Bay Conference after one year for the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference. Longtime BVC member Hopewell-Loudon then agreed to take Shelby’s spot in the SBC after the 2017-18 season, leaving an opening in the BVC.
Wade has since resigned as Crestline AD, citing family concerns and taken a teaching job at Mapleton.
New Crestline football coach Johnny King said that the potential to play in a conference is intriguing.
“I think it’s a league we can be competitive in,” King said. “The size and type of schools and things like that, it’s a good match in that respect. We have our hands full with a few of these games.
“But I’m a big advocate of the backyard rivalries and games like that,” King added. “I know that scheduling is a nightmare, especially when you are not in a conference. But I would love to play the Bucyruses and Wynfords, the schools around here again. Ultimately that’s something I can talk to our AD about. We do play Buckeye (Central) and that’s nice, but it’s such a part of high school sports to play against kids that you see at the fair, or the mall, kids you are rubbing shoulders with.”
Currently, the 11 members of the conference are Arcadia, Arlington, Cory-Rawson, Leipsic, Liberty-Benton, McComb, North Baltimore, Pandora-Gilboa, Riverdale, Van Buren and Vanlue.
Crestline could be the 12th member.
Wade said that he found out about the opening when he was talking to Cory-Rawson athletics director (Heath Huffman at the time) about a possible junior high football game between the two schools.
“When we made the decision that we weren’t going to be able to play 11-man football at the junior high level, one of the schools that we found was Cory-Rawson,” Wade said. “In talking to their athletics director, we found that Hopewell-Loudon was leaving, and they were looking for a 12th member.”
Wade asked about possibly applying, saying that the Bulldogs were happy with staying in the Mid-Buckeye Conference in every other sport, but needed to find a conference for football.
Only two MBC schools, Crestline and Lucas, play football.
Huffman sent an e-mail to the governing board of the BVC and sent Wade their contacts. Wade sent an e-mail and officially applied as a possible football-only member.
“(The BVC members) came back and were not ready to make a commitment to us for the long term and they didn’t give us a lot of reasons but the biggest one was travel,” Wade said. “But (U.S.) 30 is right there and that will help us out.”
Wade added, “And I think that the schools will see that Crestline is not a bad trip.”
One of the BVC schools, Riverdale, was a long-time member with the Bulldogs in the North Central Conference.
Wade added that the conference would play a two-year BVC schedule so the conference could see how Crestline would fit. After two seasons, the two sides will re-evaluate and see if the new arrangement is a good fit moving forward.
“(The Bulldogs) scrimmage Vanlue and have been doing that for a while,” Wade said.
Crestline also scrimmaged Cory-Rawson and Waynesfield-Goshen this past year.
Wade added that the Cory-Rawson and Vanlue administrations were excited about the possibility of adding the Bulldogs.
“The Vanlue AD (Jeremy Kloepfer) and Crestline started talking (two years ago) when (Crestline) stated we were looking for a conference,” Wade said. “At the time, (Kloepfer) said he didn’t know about Hopewell-Loudon leaving the conference. It was kind of a last-minute thing that came up in September (2017). It happened really quick. But talking to Vanlue, Cory-Rawson and some of the other schools, they seemed really excited.”
Wade was quick to stress that this arrangement is just for high school football.
He added that a few of the other schools have set up junior high games with the Bulldogs for 2019 and 2020 and he was getting a good impression from them.
One of the more attractive features for Crestline possibly joining the BVC is the way the conference schedules league games. As a result, the Bulldogs won’t play the largest schools, Liberty-Benton and Van Buren.
“The league ranks schools one through 12,” Wade said. “They rank them every two years and do it on enrollment and based on record over the last four seasons. So, enrollment plays a 30 percent factor and record over the last four seasons plays 70 percent.”
Wade pointed out that the Mid-American Conference in college does its scheduling that way as well.
“(Crestline) isn’t going to have to play the murder’s row of the conference in those first two years,” Wade said. “There are some tough games in there, but it looks like they are competitive games.”
Former Crestline football coach Kevin Sipes said that his first reaction was not as positive as Wade’s.
“I heard about it and my first reaction was no,” Sipes said. “But after Wade told me the format and how they do it, it would definitely help out our scheduling and how we schedule, minus two or three games.
“There are teams in there that are comparable to us that would help us out tremendously.”
Sipes resigned as Crestline coach after the final game of the 2018 season and the school hired King to replace him for the 2019 season.
“I think it will be a good setup for us,” Sipes added. “The way they format their league, one, two and three not playing nine, 10 and 11. Yea, I think it’s a good setup for us. We compare well with the teams in that conference and should be okay in that league.”