LOOKING TO FINISH STRONG — The Big Red football team looks to finish the regular season strong when it takes the field at Harding Stadium on senior night Friday, welcoming Long Island Lutheran to the Ohio Valley for a 7 p.m. kickoff. - Andrew Grimm

STEUBENVILLE — Just because a playoff spot and home game when those playoffs start are already locked up, don’t expect Big Red’s focus to be on anything but taking care of its Week 10 business.

That last piece of business for the 2024 regular season is Long Island Luthern, a 4-2 team out of New York that is set to pay a visit to Harding Stadium Friday night for a 7 p.m. opening kick on senior night.

“Our players are focused,” Big Red head coach Reno Saccoccia said. “We want to finish this regular season on a high note and then get ready for the postseason.”

A win over the Crusaders would add a victory over a team from a fourth state (Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania) and Canada to Big Red’s regular season resume.

A victory would also finish the first undefeated regular season for Big Red since 2017.

Most importantly, though, it is senior night – wrapping up a week of recognizing Big Red’s 18 seniors.

“We have the senior dinner (today) with the senior parents and the senior players get their pictures taken Friday morning before the game,” Saccoccia said. “Hopefully our senior players are able to enjoy their senior night and have a good last regular season game.”

To do it, they will have to contend with a Lutheran team that brings a speedy attack to town.

Junior quarterback Peyton Robinson has thrown for 1,172 yards, completing nearly 73 percent of his passes with 16 touchdowns and just three interceptions for coach Chris Reno’s team.

His top targets are junior Jacob Butler (25 catches for 565 yards and 10 touchdowns) and junior Kameron Roy (16 catches for 367 yards and six touchdowns).

Their rushing attack is led by senior Kareem Grey with 51 carries for 334 yards and six scores, averaging better than six yards per carry. Robinson has also rushed for 210 and two scores, averaging better than seven yards per carry.

They have nearly an equal split of run and pass, throwing the ball 96 times and running it 106 thus far. They average 34.2 points per game and allow an average of 23.5.

“Speed and athleticism, that’s the first thing that jumps out about them on film,” Saccoccia said. “Both offensively and defensively we have to be ready for their speed and athleticism. This team is pretty well balanced as far as athletes go, we can’t cheat to stop the pass or cheat to stop the run. We have to play fundamentally sound on defense and offensively we need to play well enough to keep the football away from them.

“This team is balanced with the numbers of guys they have as weapons. They can throw deep and short and their inside run makes you keep the box full and they run layered passes making you defend all three layers. And they have good athletes defensively.”

Travel is nothing new for the Crusaders, who have wins at Baltimore Boys Latin (Maryland) and Port Chester (New York) on the road and at home against Brooklyn Xaverian (New York) and Springfield Gardens (New York) in starting their season 4-0 before dropping their last two games to Delaware Valley (Pennsylvania) and Pennington (New Jersey).

Big Red will be the Crusaders’ first opponent from the Buckeye State which is the fifth different state represented on their schedule so far, with one more state (New Canaan, Connecticut) and the same Canadian team, Huron Heights (Ontario), that Big Red played yet to go in their final three games.

Entering the game against Lutheran, a Division VI school by OHSAA standards, Big Red sits second in both the Division III, Region 11 playoff computer rating standings and the latest Ohio Associated Press Division III poll, narrowly trailing fellow unbeaten Columbus Bishop Watterson in each.

According to Joe Eitel’s calculations, Big Red will finish in the top two in the region regardless of the result on Friday night and has locked up potential home games in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Steubenville is averaging 375.3 yards and 36.7 points per game, with 211.2 of those yards and 32 of their 45 touchdowns coming on the ground. They’ve scored 40-plus in four of the last five games.

Leading that charge has been Jalen Minnifield (708 yards, seven touchdowns, 7.3 yards per carry), Ca’Juan Bryant (477 yards, eight touchdowns, 6.8 yards per carry) and Aiden Davis (279 yards, eight touchdowns, 4.2 yards per carry).

Davis is completing 74.4 percent of his passes for 1,408 yards and 12 touchdowns with just three interceptions.

His leading target is fellow senior Brody Saccoccia with 18 catches for 349 yards and four touchdowns with an average of 19.4 yards per catch. Jeremiah Hinton has hauled in 11 balls for 238 (21.6 yards per) and three scores. Six other players have caught a touchdown pass and a total of 17 players have caught a pass for Big Red.

Landon Crosier leads the defense with 61 tackles, two sacks and defensive TD. Noah West and Ryan Bise also have two sacks, while Jemier Faulks has three interceptions and Brody Saccoccia and Will Taylor each have two.

The Big Red defense, coming off a big performance against Erie McDowell, is allowing just 16 points against per game and an average of just 235 yards.