Week 1: Salem Quakers at Liberty Leopards

• GoPens

  

  Final Liberty 21-17
• ts1227

  

  Liberty snaps an 18 game losing streak (last win vs. Niles on 9/3/10)
• Ohio

  

  Congrats liberty, seems like it was a good game, Salem still young
• southbender12

  bad news in salem this morning....they should beat united but 1-9 is on their horizon. I'd be worried about the run defense that gave up almost 300 yards against Liberty going into United. Liberty is still only a 3 win team, but props goes out to them for being 1-0.
• Spread All Day

  

  I agree ^ sadly.
• QuakerOats

  The Quakers bent but didn't break, until the 4th qtr, and the back from Liberty finally got loose on some nice runs. Would have been nice to hang on for the win but Liberty scores with 1:30 left to take it. It is pretty evident how young the Quakers are; hopefully improvement comes quickly.
• southbender12

  they are relatively young but inexperienced is a better word...all of the main contributors seem to be older with the exception of the quarterback (Webb, Carner, Crittenden..etc)...that was the second worse team on their schedule that torched them for over 300 on the ground
• QuakerOats

  Yes, Liberty gained over 300 on the ground -- they have a tremendous running back who is going to do that to a lot of teams this season. Salem still outgained them, and that is with a freshman at center .....practically unheard of.... and several other freshman and sophs in the lineup.
  
  Although they are young, the team is well coached; I look for a good performance this week.
• Ohio

  

  Unless he got a lot better from the last 2 seasons which he may have I don't see him getting over 300 on that many teams
• QuakerOats

  He did not get over 300 on Salem; Liberty as a team had 330, Walls had about 230. I'm sure some teams will be hearing from him again this year. Anyhow, it's time to beat United now.
• southbender12

  quaker you got to support your team, we all get that but Salem just got bum rushed by a 2 or 3 win team...what do you think Louisville or Marlington will do to them? I not trying to beat a dead horse but you will get a lot worse before it gets better. You have very...very limited talent on that roster but you do have good kids which will help you stay competitive but you don't always win with just good kids. Coaching only takes them so far...Bill Miller was and is a good coach, I played for him when he was an assistant on playoff team after playoff team so that goes to show you that you need a perfect storm to win. Johnson scrambled for coaches and I look for him to shake up his staff coming into next year.
• QuakerOats

  southbender12;1256559 wrote:Coaching only takes them so far...Bill Miller was and is a good coach,

  I think you meant ".......was and is a good guy..."
• QuakerOats

  QuakerOats;1256372 wrote:He did not get over 300 on Salem; Liberty as a team had 330, Walls had about 230. I'm sure some teams will be hearing from him again this year. Anyhow, it's time to beat United now.

  
  From the Vindicator:
  LIBERTY
  Sherron Walls scored three touchdowns for Liberty as he rushed 35 times for 199 yards in the Leopards’ 36-24 win over Berkshire on Saturday. His scores covered 9, 27 and 21 yards. Quarterback Asim Pleas completed five of six passes for 73 yards.
• southbender12

  nope meant good coach..he is a great guy...not many people have been able to win in Salem..do you think Johnson is a good coach? because he is about to have as bad as year as you could possibly have.
• ts1227

  

  southbender12;1256559 wrote:Coaching only takes them so far...Bill Miller was and is a good coach, I played for him when he was an assistant on playoff team after playoff team...

  
  Bill Miller was a good assistant in the past, but a horrendous head coach. Plenty of coaches are like that.
  
  I agree about some of Johnson's assistants being hired last second and most likely a decent amount will turn over.
• QuakerOats

  southbender12;1268131 wrote:nope meant good coach..he is a great guy...not many people have been able to win in Salem..do you think Johnson is a good coach? because he is about to have as bad as year as you could possibly have.

  
  I agree; great guy.
  
  As for Johnson, he will do very well at Salem; this I know. Most will recall Doug Phillips had a very lean year or two at the outset, and he got it fixed. And I think Johnson is in it for the long haul. I think we will all be glad he is here.
• southbender12

  yea coach phillips did have a nice run at Salem but he was not able to get over the hump and into the playoffs. Whether or not Johnson is a good fit, only time will tell. Going to be hard to build after an 0-10 season, especially in the NBC where a few of those teams are actually down right now..imagine how ugly it would be if they were firing on all cylinders...West Branch, Canton South and even Louisville have been down.
• QuakerOats

  Maybe joing the NBC as its smallest school was not the right move. Coach Johnson, nor even his predecessor, had anything to do with that.
• ts1227

  

  QuakerOats;1268970 wrote:Maybe joing the NBC as its smallest school was not the right move. Coach Johnson, nor even his predecessor, had anything to do with that.

  It was my understanding that Kopachy was one of like 2-3 varsity coaches that did NOT want to go NBC.
• southbender12

  I believe that whole comment that the superintendent made about only a few coaches not wanting to go to the NBC is a myth...in fact if you talk to those coaches no formal vote was even taken, it was more like a questionnaire that they filled out that gave a vague indication that he was testing the waters with the NBC. If you were or are a coach at Salem and voted for this move then you should have your head examined...the AD and Board of Ed. should of never let this happen because it is going to hurt the revenue generating sports the most. The boys and girls basketball teams are both below average (don't care what you say about boys basketball but the last few years they just aren't very good) and the football team will have a hard time winning games in that conference. Less people go to games when you stink, which means less $ for programs, which means a cash strapped district might have to tighten its belt even more. It doesn't affect track and their volleyball team is good always but no one really cares about volleyball (truth hurts) and the baseball team is horrible anyways...they need to get Kopachy to take that over, once upon a time he was quite a baseball coach. Anyways, what I am trying to say is that you should make your decision based off basketball and football because they generate the most revenue and attention if its all the same for basketball and thats what i have heard Salem people say, then you decide based off of football and this was the wrong move for football. Get the Board to get into the AAC again because its not folding like Bratten said it was going to, in fact they want to expand and go to 3 tiers again.
• QuakerOats

  My final post on all this:
  
  Boys basketball has been average or slightly above over the last two years and has won several tournament games, and were withing 15 seconds of the district championship last year and would have played the district champs in that final game -- a team they had already beaten in the regular season. The team will be strong this year and should contend for the district title.
  
  Girls basketball -- -the person hired 2 years ago to be the head coach was/is nowhere near ready to be a head coach. It is hurting the program significantly.
  
  The baseball team will be good this year, and could actually be very good depending on who the new coach will be. And it will NOT be the person you mentioned above, and NEVER will be that person.
  
  The move to the NBC was not a good move, for any number of reasons.
  
  There are a couple of other moves, administratively, that should have occurred, and policies that should have been modified or scrapped, all of which would have had positive affects on most of the above, but neither occurred.
• ts1227

  

  southbender12;1269444 wrote:I believe that whole comment that the superintendent made about only a few coaches not wanting to go to the NBC is a myth...in fact if you talk to those coaches no formal vote was even taken, it was more like a questionnaire that they filled out that gave a vague indication that he was testing the waters with the NBC. If you were or are a coach at Salem and voted for this move then you should have your head examined...

  Back when it happened, a local media source (I won't reveal their name per their request back in 2008-9) had told me that there was a very definitive line in how the coaches felt, with football on the minority (no NBC) side.
  

  southbender12;1269444 wrote:Get the Board to get into the AAC again because its not folding like Bratten said it was going to, in fact they want to expand and go to 3 tiers again.

  The AAC's future is still about clear as mud IMO. The Big TAC schools still hate that they have to play someone bigger than LaBrae, the big MAC schools honestly don't need the rest of the conference and could just do their own thing with Fitch. All 3 tiers does is prove that no one wants to play anyone, because there is no other sane reason to split 15-16 teams into more than 2 tiers. I see it going back to more of a MAC/TAC soon.
• southbender12

  Don't disagree with a lot of what you said Oats but I just think Salem people all view that basketball team as much better then they are...who knows maybe they will light the world on fire this season. Your thoughts on the baseball team are completely wrong however...they have been awful the past two years and most of those kids haven't gotten any better and the NBC is tough in baseball...they will however win more than 3 games or whatever it is they usually win. I know the kids they have and they are tough but they haven't been developed like they should of been.
  
  TS your thoughts on AAC are interesting but it will never be a true TAC/MAC split again...the smaller schools in the AAC are already aligning themselves to get out and go their own thing..more likely to be just one big AAC conference with those MAC schools and Hubbard, Liberty and Lakeview rounding it out because no one else will take them because they are much bigger than the other trumbull county schools.
• ts1227

  

  southbender12;1270333 wrote:Don't disagree with a lot of what you said Oats but I just think Salem people all view that basketball team as much better then they are...who knows maybe they will light the world on fire this season. Your thoughts on the baseball team are completely wrong however...they have been awful the past two years and most of those kids haven't gotten any better and the NBC is tough in baseball...they will however win more than 3 games or whatever it is they usually win. I know the kids they have and they are tough but they haven't been developed like they should of been.
  
  TS your thoughts on AAC are interesting but it will never be a true TAC/MAC split again...the smaller schools in the AAC are already aligning themselves to get out and go their own thing..more likely to be just one big AAC conference with those MAC schools and Hubbard, Liberty and Lakeview rounding it out because no one else will take them because they are much bigger than the other trumbull county schools.

  You have a good point on the small schools. The most realistic thing is probably the large TAC schools getting hung out to dry
• QuakerOats

  southbender12;1270333 wrote: Your thoughts on the baseball team are completely wrong however...they have been awful the past two years and most of those kids haven't gotten any better and the NBC is tough in baseball...they will however win more than 3 games or whatever it is they usually win. I know the kids they have and they are tough but they haven't been developed like they should of been.

  You are right about the NBC in baseball - good teams. Hopefully the new coach will actually have them swinging bats in January, because it is offensively where they are weakest and little was done about it.