Quote:
Originally Posted by DaytonBuck
I know continuing at 90's level is probably unrealistic but any reason for their dip? They probably won 90 something SWBL games in a row.
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Well, I think there are several things. A big thing to me is that other small schools' strength and conditioning programs have caught up with Valley View's. Years ago, Shane Hannah, a VV alum that played O-line at Michigan State and eventually for the Cowboys, bought a state of the art weight room for a small, rural, low-budget school district that largely competed against other small, rural, low-budget school districts. I think for a long time kids from VV were just ahead of the strength and conditioning trend that eventually caught on at other schools. They were bigger, stronger, and faster.
I think Jay Niswonger has had a lot to do with the success at VV. He was an innovative coach that was running offenses and defenses that most high school coaches weren't familiar with, but, again, I think coaching at other schools has caught up with him. Niswonger has been at VV for over 20 years and has a reputation for risk taking. Sometimes it serves him well while other times it doesn't. Lately, I don't think it has. Niswonger, by the way, was an early proponent of playing kids on only one side of the ball to keep them fresh, and I know when I was in high school it worked out well for him. Not sure his teams are deep enough to do that anymore, though.
VV always used to have plenty of good athletes and a handful of great athletes. I watched Aaron Foucht outperform Ahmed Plummer and his Cincy Wyoming club one year for instance. Guys like Butch Stidham, Tim Bush, Andy Keating, Dustin Strayer, and Brock Bolen come to mind as guys who had D-1 offers of varying prominence. These were guys that weren't necessarily just great football players, they were great athletes, often starring in sports like baseball, football, and wrestling. For whatever reason, I think they've still had good athletes recently, but not so many great ones.
I haven't been able to follow them all that closely since I've moved away, but I know they were working with a Freshman QB a couple years ago when they went 3-9, after their starter was dismissed from the team and their backup went down with a season-ending injury. They've had some discipline problems and some tough luck with injuries in general recently.
I don't know that they'll ever reach the level of dominance they once saw (Versailles, for instance, hasn't ever gotten back to where they once were, either), but I don't think they'll be going away entirely any time soon. Kids used to move to Germantown to play for Valley View--Brock Bolen moved from Springboro, for instance; a kid named Lance Bundy moved from Preble Shawnee years ago and was a big contributor. I don't know that that will happen anymore because other teams have caught up, but if they have a couple stellar athletes come through again, I think they could win another championship, because the same coaching staff is largely in place.