Believe it or not, we’ve already reached the midway point of the high school football regular season.

Seems like the cream has risen to the top in most of the leagues we’re covering at Press Pros Magazine in western Ohio.

This Week in Ohio State Football: Chalk talk

In the Miami Valley League, Tippecanoe is 5-0 while Troy and Xenia (who already played each other with Troy winning) are 4-1. Butler, Fairborn and Stebbins are all 3-2, but they’ve all also already been destroyed by Tipp and/or one of the one-loss teams.

In the MAC, four teams are 4-1, but 5-0 Marion Local has already beaten two of them (New Bremen and St. Henry) while getting Versailles this week.

The Western Ohio Athletic League has two undefeated teams — Preble Shawnee and Tri-Village with two more at 4-1 (Mississinawa Valley and Arcanum), so that’s a bit of a different story, but again, Preble Shawnee just crushed Arcanum.

Ohio high school football notes: Week 4

In the Three Rivers Conference, Lehman Catholic (5-0) and Miami East (4-1) are the only teams undefeated in league play, and they are the only teams above .500 overall.

The Central Buckeye Conference lost an undefeated team last weekend when London smashed Graham 42-0 to improve to 5-0, same as Jonathan Alder.

The GWOC appears to be wide open again as no one has more than three wins overall at the midway point. Beavercreek, Wayne and Springfield are 2-0 in the league, however, and the Warriors got an early leg up with a win over defending co-champion Fairmont on Friday night. (The other 2024 co-champ, Centerville, is 0-5 after being shut out by Springfield this weekend.)

And then there is the Ohio Heritage Conference, where the North division has 5-0 West Jefferson and 5-0 Northeastern (my home district nowadays, for full disclosure) while Mechanicsburg finished non-league play 4-1.

There’s no need to wait to find out who is the pre-eminent team here, though, as the Roughriders and will host the Jets this Friday.

Meanwhile, the South looks wide open as defending champion Greeneview is just 2-3 while 3-2 Cedarville is the only team above .500.

They will face off this week in the latest edition of The Battle of 72, which should give the winner the inside track to winning the division.

Is THIS the year the Indians win their first league title since I was a 160-pound starting guard for the Red and White (1998)? Time will tell, but their losses are to the aforementioned West Jefferson and 3-2 West Liberty-Salem so there is reason for hope!

OK, let’s review what happened over the weekend in case you missed it:

I was in Vandalia on Friday night to see Tippecanoe improve to 5-0 with a 42-0 beatdown of Butler.

Sometimes it feels like Tipp is just playing itself most Friday nights.

The Red Devils want another league title, but they also want to go farther than they did last season in the playoffs.

They can’t do that until November though so now it’s about getting better every week.

Running the ball more appears to be part of that strategy.

Rugged senior Xavier Melton carried 18 times while junior Larkin Thomas threw 18 passes, though some of those were really just jet sweeps and shovel passes that covered a yard or less in the air.

Thomas also ran six times for 52 yards so this was a more ground-oriented attack.

Melton is averaging about five more carries per game than he did last year, and overall the Red Devils have run it on about 58 percent of their plays, up from 53 last year.

This was also the second time in three weeks I spoke to a disappointed Zach Gueth after the game (last time it was following a 20-0 loss to Xenia). He was certainly hurting Friday night, but I was impressed with the way his staff was still coaching hard right up to the final gun.

Ohio high school football notes: Week 3

Speaking of dominant teams, have you heard of Marion Local?

If you’re reading this, you probably have, but just in case: The Flyers have won 69 consecutive games and four state championships in a row.

Coach Tim Goodwin did his best to talk down his team’s chances of maintaining their dominance this season after heavy losses to graduation, but they are 5-0 an easier-than-expected 40-7 win over New Bremen.

The main reason is sophomore quarterback Brennen Hess, who threw for 214 yards on just 12 pass attempts, five of which landed in the arms of Cale Nagel, who finished with 176 yards and four touchdowns.

Both he and the Flyers appear to be ahead of schedule, a chilling thought for the rest of the state.

Cue Goodwin:

Next up is a trip to Versailles while the other game to watch in the MAC this week is Minster at St. Henry.

In Central Ohio, Division I defending state champion Olentangy Liberty has won two in a row after starting 0-3.

The Patriots beat Dublin Scioto on Friday night with a big-play offense relying on quarterback Alex Leonard and receiver Ben Godwin.

Liberty coach John Sansbury told Jarrod Ulrey slow starts are nothing new for his program, so he is tasked with getting his players to keep the faith as they replace 31 seniors.

According to veteran Central Ohio scribe and Press Pros writer Steve Blackledge, the Battle of Hard Road, pitting Dublin Scioto and Worthington Kilbourne, is a rivalry like few others and Friday’s 34th meeting had an ending like few others.

Erkan Erciyas nailed a 45-yard field goal as time expired, giving the Wolves a thrilling 17-14 victory before a packed house at Scioto.

Not only is this a rivalry of schools separated by less than three miles, it is also one involving two teams having their best seasons in a while — or at least looking to.

They have played three times in the playoffs and could again, though the loss was damaging to the Irish, who fell to 14th in the standings in Division II, Region 7 according to Joe Eitel. That’s no longer enough to make the playoffs with the OHSAA shrinking the field to 12 teams this year.

Worthington Kilbourne rose to seventh.

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To the west, the London machine rolled on, crushing previously unbeaten Graham 42-0.

The Falcons were exposed, though that didn’t seem to come as a surprise to many. They already exceeded last season’s win total and have reason to believe better days are ahead.

The undefeated Red Raiders won their 28th straight regular season game, and they did so by mixing in something Graham coach Rich Clark said he hadn’t seen them do: A jet sweep to complement their usual power running game.

The Red Raiders and Jonathan Alder are set to play in London in Week 8, but this week the Red Raiders go to defensively-challenged Urbana…

Back in the MAC, the good feelings at Anna didn’t last long, but that could be because St. Henry is pretty good.

Last week, I was at Anna for the Rockets’ upset win over Coldwater.

Anna coach Nick Marino was thrilled with that outcome, but he also said there wasn’t too much time to celebrate with St. Henry next on the schedule.

He was right. The resurgent Redskins rocked the Rockets 28-7, using a flea flicker to break an early scoreless slugfest open.

St. Henry lost 21-14 to Marion Local two weeks ago, but quarterback Charlie Werling said the competitiveness of that game gave the Redskins confidence they are tapping into now…

Elsewhere in the MVL, Troy put down a challenge from upstart Fairborn with ease.

Troy coach Troy Everhart said last week he wanted some players to step up to help star quarterback Aiden Kirkpatrick, and he got that against the Skyhawks.

He posted 127 total yards while Kayden Franklin picked up 119 yards on eight carries and Uriah Browner added 80 yards on nine…

This week the Trojans host Stebbins in what figures to be most interesting game in the MVL. The Indians are 3-2 after outlasting improved Greenville last week. They were trounced by Tippecanoe and lost close to Butler but beat Carroll and Sidney handily.

Stebbins has the league’s No. 2 passer in Devin McCormick and No. 3 rusher in Andre McConnell.

Buckeyes still figuring out what they want to be on offense