Success on the gridiron at James Monroe High School, for the most part, has been the norm throughout the school’s history.
As history has shown, however, winning has a way of decreasing your circle of friends when it comes to scheduling.
Coming off two highly successful fall campaigns in Lindside, including a state championship appearance this past December, finding opponents for the 2023 season became a difficult task to say the least.
“I have seen it for years. We went through this back in the 2000’s,” veteran head coach John Mustain said. “Bluefield goes through it every year with people not wanting them to play them. You can’t force teams to play you.”
The typical high school football schedule is made up of 10 regular season games, normally five home contests and five on the road.
The Mavericks will only have nine games on the schedule this year.
“Even at that, the schedule not only toughened up, but I still need another game,” Mustain said. “We have had some calls from teams in Kentucky that have about 1,500 kids, but there is a certain point where you have to say, enough is enough.”
Making matters worse, only four of the games will be played at home and two of the additions this year are perennial football powers in West Virginia.
One of the powerhouse schools added is Wheeling Central Catholic. The Maroon Knights are still smarting from a 27-7 semifinal loss in the state football playoffs last year to the Mavs. The other big-time school is Class AA stalwart Bluefield who comes to Lindside in the final week of the regular season.
“Back in the fall of 1999 we only had nine games, so you just do what you can,” Mustain said. “In some ways I hate having to get Bluefield and Wheeling Central on the schedule. Wheeling Central for no other reason than the travel. There was one year, maybe 2010 it was, that we had to go up and play St. Clairsville, Ohio.”
Scrambling to find teams willing to play James Monroe has also made for a less than ideal road back to the playoffs.
Week 1 involves a trip to Wheeling, followed by an off week. A trip to PikeView in Week 3 is followed by another off week.
The Mavericks will travel to Narrows, Va. in week five before finally playing their home opener against Summers County, one day shy of the month of October.
“You get people that say the WVSSAC should step in and tell teams who they have to play, but they don’t want to get in the business of telling schools who they have to play. I totally understand that,” Mustain said.
Joining PikeView and Summers County from last year’s schedule will be Greenbrier West, Midland Trail, Liberty and Nicholas County.
All six teams fell victim to the Plowboys in 2022 and will definitely come ready to settle a score.
“We went to Summers last year and the score was not indicative of how well they played that night,” Mustain said. “I look for them to be a lot better this year. People don’t realize how good PikeView was last year.”
Although there is only nine games on the docket, a tough schedule does afford the Mavericks a solid opportunity to make another trip to the postseason.
“The potential is there with four double-A’s on the schedule, but the bottom line is, you have to come out every Friday night ready to play. It doesn’t matter who the team is on the other side,” Mustain said. “Last year some of the teams we played were down, but two years ago we lost to Sherman, Liberty and Nicholas County in the regular season and still did well enough to get a home game in the playoffs.”
Another part of the postseason equation that James Monroe must solve will be replacing some quality athletes lost to graduation.
“We didn’t have a boat-load of seniors, but we have lost five starters off the defense and technically five on offense. We had two seniors that rotated in at the end position,” Mustain said. “Some of the other seniors might not have been stars, but they were important back-ups. We lost some good people, no doubt about.”
While replacing names like Eli Allen and Braydie Carr will be a tall task, Mustain is confident in the group that will hit the field.
“We have some good people coming back,” Mustain explained. “The question is, can the younger kids step up and do the job? We have kids that we like the looks of and potentially they can do the job. I like the possibilities of this team this year.”
“For the most part I have gone into every season with an optimistic view of what our team can do,” Mustain went on to say. “One of the things that will make it more difficult when you fill those holes with younger kids is the fact that the schedule has gotten tougher. We could end up having a really good team and our record may not indicate it. I have seen that happen many of times. If they come in in the right frame of mind and listen to their coaches, I think they can fill those spots though.”
