Portsmouth Trojans Football 2011

[Ptown Playmaker]

I think Zaide at corner will be better.....I think he can come up for big run support.....let Wayne roam at safety and pick anything off over the top.

[jgordon0315]

Fair enough, I just thought Vice Versa made sense as well! Regardless, they have a lot more options!

[BigBlueNation]

Its sad to see a team with so much talent year in an year out, to not win like they should.....portsmouth usually has more talent than any team in the area but fails to win games

Very well said. Im sure if you would ask around most people who know the game of football would agree with you. Why hasn't something changed over the years?? LoL at this rhetorical question

Historically more talent yes, but the last few years this has not been true. Since 03, PHS has been without one of their great backs that Portsmouth football is known for. 04, had some talent as did, 07 both neither year was anywhere as talented as years prior to 03. Both 04, and 07 were playoff teams because of that talent though.
Burg and West have both had more talent than PHS lately, plain and simple. Sure we may send a guy or two to a big school here and there, but I mean across the board, all spots considered.
PHS coaches also have to deal with problems no other local coaches have to deal with. PHS is an incredibly poor district, with multiple housing projects in the district. 52% of students in Portsmouth are on free or reduced lunch, compared to 23% at Burg, 26% at Valley, 26% at Minford and 36% at West. (This info can be found at http://high-schools.com) Having more predominantly poor kids means less parental involvement, less people supporting kids at home, and less kids that have been taught the value of hard work. I’m not saying this is true for all students on reduced and free lunch I realize times are hard everywhere, but you can’t tell me it doesn’t give the other local schools an advantage. School like Burg, who have more affluent parents, are less likely to let their kids slack off, or not give 100 percent.
PHS is also at a decided disadvantage because we don’t get to play in the local good old boy league, i.e. the SOC, Burg and West are the only local schools that regularly play PHS. In 2010 West opponents were an average of division of 4.3 with a win percentage of 41.7. in 2010 PHS opponents division average was 3.0 or 1.3 divisions higher than West, 60.7 or a full 19% better than West opponents. So PHS opponents are larger schools, and win more games.
Burgs opponents are a 4.2 division average, and a 53.2 win percentage. Burg’s is much better, and nothing wrong playing a 4.2 average as a D5 school but PHS still plays up 1.2 average higher and a 7.5 win percentage higher.
Minford plays an average of 4.2, and their opponents have a 53.6 win percentage. 1.2 lower division than PHS and 7.1 win percentage higher.
So let’s see what we have learned PHS has more disadvantages, than any of them, do to socioeconomically factors. They play bigger teams, that win more games, yet people want to complain because they don’t win the games others do. Although they dominate the series with Minford, lead the series with West, and I would assume have fared better against the Burg than any SOC team the It’s comparing apples to oranges.
When PHS has talent we win games, from 97-02 PHS was 50 -9 in the regular season with a 4-2 record against Burg with losses coming in 97 and 98 respectively, 4-0 vs. West, 3-0 vs. Minford, and 5-0 vs. Waverly. No other SOC teams were played.
Point is when the talent is there we are as good as anybody if not better, but when it’s not it is hard to win, especially with the schedule we play. I know Burg and West were both better than us last year, and they proved that, but in all honesty if we played West schedule we would have went 6-4 at worst. That’s in a down year with limited talent, and with losing our Mr. Everything after the 3rd game.
Talent will return and so will more wins, everything goes in cycles, and as good as we were from 97-02 we had to know there were going to have lean years as well. The thing is the last 8 years that have been down years have still produced 2 playoff teams and 3 7 or more win teams.
I personally think the tables are turning and PHS has some talent starting with this season, and more wins will start again.
So from now on don’t just compare the records without taking into consideration all the other factors that goes into it.
Proud to be a Trojans, we will be back.

I will agree that portsmouth does play a tougher schedule but you dont have to play in that league I would like to see you in the soc and drop waverly and northwest and maybe add Ironton as well, as for saying no other coaches have to deal with the stuff the P-town coaches do is crap they have a advantage over most of the coaches in the area most of the the kids in your district probably live within 5 miles of the school that is walking distance we have kids that probably live up to 25 miles to the school if not farther so I say the other coaches have to deal with the same stuff as for the rest of the post I will agree.

[Trojan_FB_Alum]

I do agree that Portsmouth doesn’t have to deal with district size( mileage) as much as the county schools, but I still believe the coaches at PHS have a far harder time dealing with the extremely poor student body that we have. I don’t think you can deny that for the most part it is far easier to get kids who have parents who have money, to participate and be productive members of the team, and realize the value of hard work. No not all poor kids are going to be troubled, but obviously I’m not the only one that feels this way, as this was the basis of the OHSAA’s recent approach to redesign divisions.

As for not having to play in the SEOAL, that’s kind of a lie too. I guess we could go independent again, struggle to fill the schedules, travel the state, KY, WV, and still play bigger schools, and take the chance to play for league honors and championships away from our athletes, but I don’t know why we would do that. You talk about PHS in the SOC, well I love the idea as well but we have been repeatedly turned down, and I can’t see it ever happening, so actually we do have to play in the SEOAL.

[BigBlueNation]

I do agree that Portsmouth doesn’t have to deal with district size( mileage) as much as the county schools, but I still believe the coaches at PHS have a far harder time dealing with the extremely poor student body that we have. I don’t think you can deny that for the most part it is far easier to get kids who have parents who have money, to participate and be productive members of the team, and realize the value of hard work. No not all poor kids are going to be troubled, but obviously I’m not the only one that feels this way, as this was the basis of the OHSAA’s recent approach to redesign divisions.

As for not having to play in the SEOAL, that’s kind of a lie too. I guess we could go independent again, struggle to fill the schedules, travel the state, KY, WV, and still play bigger schools, and take the chance to play for league honors and championships away from our athletes, but I don’t know why we would do that. You talk about PHS in the SOC, well I love the idea as well but we have been repeatedly turned down, and I can’t see it ever happening, so actually we do have to play in the SEOAL.

Who makes the decisions in the SOC to turn the Trojans down I think it's crap they will not let you in maybe someone should start a petition and bring it to soc games and see how many people feels like you should be let in I think there would be alot of people that do and would be willing to sign just a thought.

[Trojan_FB_Alum]

Each SOC school votes, and each time PHS has applied they have been voted down. I do like the petition idea, but I still can't see it happening.

[BigBlueNation]

Does that mean the school boards is the one who vote on this if so I should of figured I was just thinking how much easier it would be on the kids the fans and on the school to play most of your games in Scioto county I just dont understand why they wont it is a shame.

[Trojan_FB_Alum]

I don’t pretend to know everything about the SOC, but I believe each school has a representative (athletic director), and they vote at league meetings.

[trojan7]

Yes you are correct their is a rep from each school (AD normally) but EVERY SOC team votes. From years past I have heard it's not the SOC 2 who votes no but SOC 1 is where alot of the no votes come from. But that is just from past talks and hearsays. Travel being so costly it would help PHS a good bit.

[BigSlowWhiteGuy]

Good Point Trojan7. So far from what I can tell almost every school that has withdrawn from the SEOAL has do so, in part, due to travel expenses. Below is a pool of schools I would like to see on the Trojan schedule if The SEOAL folds.

Any SOC II School
Old SEOAL Opponents Jackson, Gallia, Ironton, Chillicothe
Northern Kentucky Schools Ashland, Greenup, Russell, Raceland
Rock Hill, South Point, Chesapeake, Oak Hill

These Schools are a bit farther but closer than the teams we play now
Fairland, Cabell Midland, Huntington, Mason County,KY, Greenfield McClain, Wilmington, WCH,Miami Trace Hillsboro and Amanda Clearcreek.

I enjoy the SEOAL Competition but several of those schools are well out of range for competitive travel for teams and fans alike.

[Trojan_FB_Alum]

Basically, what I have been told, several SOC school abstain from voting, which is accentually a no vote, because it takes so many yes votes to get in. I have also been told that votes are secret so we really don’t know who is keeping us out. Personally think that it is a cowardly way of doing it if it is in fact true.

I agree with most of the school BSWG suggested with the exception of Oak Hill, except for a few recent good years, Oak Hill can’t run with PHS, just as they can’t compete most years with the SOC2 schools. Let’s wait and see if they can keep up their recent success for a few more years before we consider adding them, they also don’t offer many 2nd level point playing in SOC1.
I like all the others and I would like to add Spring Valley WV (a big school that brings lots of points), Piketon ( region 15 foe) Boyd Co. Ky.

Now back to this season, PHS has started 3-a-days, and should start hitting later in the week. Time to separate the men from the boys and see what we really have this season. How are things looking down at the Coliseum?

[jgordon0315]

I think they have a intrasquad scrimmage sometime saturday, not sure!?!?!?!?! Other than that, they've looked solid, still tough to tell until they actually put the pads on and actually start hitting. This is the time of the year that they grind! Hope we have a stellar season this year!

[PTrojan59]

Just got back from the intersquad scrimage and i have to say i was impressed ! We had some good moments and bad moments Zaide Whitley looked great. Portsmouth scrimages Wellston this Wednesday at 6 at the Collisuim come out and watch !

[Trojan_FB_Alum]

From what I saw, there were some positives and some negatives. The D was shaky at best, although I would think 6 maybe 7 of the guys on the offense probably start D as was. The line was ok, but had some problems, I notice Ratcliff didn’t play though and I would think he is our best lineman. WR were awesome, and once Mason got into a groove was very tough. I’d like to see harder running out of the backfield, but it wasn’t bad either.
I agree Zaide was impressive. Others I liked were Johnnie Charles , and Jacob Albrecht, these two guys made several tackles, and were all over the place.
Stapelton looked good at JV QB as well.

We have plenty of stuff to work on and it’s still hard to tell at this point. We will know more when we play Wellston and Minford

[trojan7]

Heard we did very well last night vs Wellston. Any details besides we had 5 TDs 0 TOs and they were held scoreless?

[Trojan_FB_Alum]

The WRs and Mason at QB were impressive, with passes all over the field. There were a few real nice long balls and several out of the quick package. Also ran a nice bubble screen and a TE screen to Porter that was successful. Duke Edwards is coming around at RB, he was a little slow running early but ran hard for I would say around a 20 plus yard gain to put us very close to the TD when we were going down and distance. Duke is still learning, but at times you can see flashes of what he may be able to do.
It looks like we’re still trying to figure the line out somewhat, with a few guys rotating in and out at the guard spot.
On D, we look to be improved, Wellston moved the ball some, but in a real game PHS would have had many stops. JW, looked pretty good at LB, when Johnnie Charles was in he was all over the place ( got to find that kid a spot to start) Ronnie Truman had some nice big tackles for loss, and the secondary looked solid most of the night. It will be rare that we see an athlete with the speed of Jaylen Prater from Wellston, and the Trojans did a very good job of containing him.
Trojans ran what looked to be in a 3-4 defense some. Not something I was expecting but it was pretty successful, and we looked pretty good out of it. I’m guess it is because we have a ton of LB types and are limited on linemen. Either way I think it might help our D this season.
Over all things looked pretty good, and I am happy with the progress that I have seen so far.

[PTrojan59]

I was also very impressed once again Zaide looked good ! Our deffense is alot faster than it has been in past years. I was also suprised we ran a 3-4 deffense but we did good out of it so i hope we stick with it. Charles is every where he will be playing both sides of the ball this year at some point he is just an all around athelete. We had kids in the backfield alot durring the scrimage. Still early but right now im very happy. We scrimage Minford Saturday hope we put on a good showing !

[mglight88]

anyone have a thing to report on the Minford at Portsmouth scrimmage.

[Trojan_FB_Alum]

In the 10 play series, Minford scored 3 times, and PHS was unable to find the end zone. ( PHS did have a fumble recovery that would have been a TD, also)
PHS won down and distances 1 TD to 0 I think, with each having two possessions.
Minford looked very good tonight. PHS looked like we didn’t even show up. The defense had no answer for Minford’s run game, till slowing them down some in their final possession, which was also aided by some Minford penalties.
PHS is better than they showed tonight, and will need to get back to the way they played against Wellston, or this could turn out to be a long season.

[jgordon0315]

In the 10 play series, Minford scored 3 times, and PHS was unable to find the end zone. ( PHS did have a fumble recovery that would have been a TD, also)
PHS won down and distances 1 TD to 0 I think, with each having two possessions.
Minford looked very good tonight. PHS looked like we didn’t even show up. The defense had no answer for Minford’s run game, till slowing them down some in their final possession, which was also aided by some Minford penalties.
PHS is better than they showed tonight, and will need to get back to the way they played against Wellston, or this could turn out to be a long season.

Great recap!!