Trending
YOUNGSTOWN -- Off to a 3-0 start to the season, the Big Red football team heads on the road for the first time this week for perhaps its biggest test yet when they head north to battle Youngstown Cardinal Mooney on Friday night at Youngstown State's Stambaugh Stadium.
The Cardinals are 2-1 and MaxPreps has them ranked No. 1 in Ohio Division V. They have beaten Lake Catholic (41-7) and Canfield (19-7), with their lone set back coming on the road to Garfield Heights (49-31).
"We have major respect for them," Big Red head coach Reno Saccoccia said. "They have made our program better over the years by us having to build our program to compete with them. That's the best thing I can about them is that they helped us be a better program."
Friday's meeting is the 16th all time between the tradition-rich programs, Big Red taking the series lead 8-7 with wins in the last three-straight meetings. The Steubenville victory a year ago, a 27-24 overtime thriller at Harding Stadium, was just the latest in a series of all-time classics between the teams.
"It was a really good game last year and it's been a really good game the last five or six times we have played," Saccoccia said. "When we go into a game with them, we know it's going to take us giving 100 percent effort for as long as it takes to play with them."
The Cardinals are rated as having the toughest schedule in all of Division V by Drew Pasteur. Big Red, which is ranked No. 1 in Division III by MaxPreps to set up a showdown of two No. 1s, is rated as having the hardest Division III schedule by Pasteur's ratings.
"They're a typical Cardinal Mooney team," Saccoccia said. "They're going to pound you in the middle with the run and use the play-action pass. Defensively, they match you up and play good, solid football.
"The key is stopping the run, if you don't stop the run against them, you're not going to be very successful."
Big Red has used its ground game to roll to the 3-0 start, averaging 280 yards per game as a team on the ground. Colton Henderson, who had 212 yards and four touchdowns in a 48-7 win over Linsly last week, has led that charge with 456 yards and seven touchdowns so far this season. Big Red has had more than a dozen players record a carry so far this season.
The opening kick for the first of two trips to YSU this year for Steubenville is set for 7 p.m.
"It's a great place to play," Saccoccia said of YSU's stadium. "Our kids are excited to play there. We're happy to be able to go on the road with three wins. Hopefully we can get four good quarters out of players and coaches on Friday night."