Andrew Grimm PLAYOFF TIME AT LAST — After the bye week, Santino Haney and the Big Red football team are back in action to host their first playoff game tonight at Harding Stadium, welcoming Deleware Buckeye Valley.

STEUBENVILLE — The way Big Red head coach Reno Saccoccia sees it, his team earned its week off through a great effort down the stretch.

That week off is over, however, and tonight, it’s back to work for the Big Red football team.

After a bye in the first week of the playoffs, Steubenville opens its playoff run against Delaware Buckeye Valley at Harding Stadium in the second round of the Division III, Region 11 playoffs.

“It was good,” Saccoccia said of the bye. “You never like to have a week off, but we wanted to use it as a positive thing. From where we started from in 19th to place, to where we ended up in third place, our kids earned and deserved the week off. That’s how we approached it.”

Buckeye Valley is a familiar foe for Big Red — they met last year in the playoffs, a 47-7 opening round win by Big Red also at Harding Stadium.

Saccoccia was quick to point out this year’s Barons are a different team than the one his Big Red saw a year ago.

“They’re much better and much different team than they were last year,” Saccoccia said. “They’re more of a power team now and they defend the power much better. At the key points of football, running the football and stopping the run, I think they’ve improved immensely and they’re a very good football team.

“They were 6-4 last year and this year they’re 9-2. They’re just a much better team all around. Offensively and defensively, they have a lot of experience back.”

The Barons have been on the rise as a program. After making their first playoff appearance in school history in 2020, they’re now in their fourth-straight postseason and in the playoffs for the fifth time in six seasons. Last week, with a 42-13 victory over Athens, Buckeye Valley got its first playoff win as a program.

They enter the game averaging 32.7 point per game and allows an average of 15 points per game.

Big Red, meanwhile, has one of the most decorated playoff histories in the state and is making its 25th-straight playoff appearance. Big Red is 80-33 overall in the postseason.

Coming in on a seven-game win streak, Steubenville averages 33.4 points per game and allows 23.3 points.

The winner of tonights game will meet the winner of Licking Valley and Bloom-Carroll in the regional semifinals next week.

Win or lose, it will be the last game this season at Harding Stadium this season, and the last home game for Big Red’s 15 seniors.

“This will be our last time up the ramp this year,” Saccoccia said. “I hope that we cherish it. These seniors have spent six years in the program starting in seventh grade at Harding. I hope that their last walk up the ramp is something they enjoy and they realize that this is an experience that will stick with them.

“Hopefully the walk back down the ramp at the end of the night is just as happy as the walk up it.”