{"id":106016,"date":"2018-08-20T06:18:17","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T11:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=106016"},"modified":"2018-08-20T06:18:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T11:18:17","slug":"monday-mailbag-august-20-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/08\/20\/monday-mailbag-august-20-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Mailbag: August 20, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n

The Monday Mailbag is one of the newest features added to our sports coverage. Today\u2019s questions, which were chosen at random, center around high school football and Urban Meyer. However, questions may be submitted about any sport at the high school, collegiate or professional level.<\/p>\n

Q: Why did you pick Van Wert to finish only fourth in your pre-season football poll? Don\u2019t you know the Cougars have a lot of great players and are ready to win the WBL title? You should have picked them higher. Name withheld upon request<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I wanted to pick the Cougars higher, and I hope I\u2019m wrong with my prediction. I would love to see them win the Western Buckeye League championship. Van Wert lost some solid players to graduation, and you\u2019re correct, the team has some great returning players.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why I didn\u2019t pick them first \u2013 the WBL appears to be absolutely loaded this season. In my mind, there are anywhere between 4-6 teams that could at least contend for the title, including Van Wert.<\/em><\/p>\n

St. Marys is the defending champion, and with a wealth of returning talent, there\u2019s no reason the Roughriders shouldn\u2019t be considered the preseason favorite.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kenton returns quarterback Jaron Sharp, who accounted for over 4,600 yards of offense and 46 touchdowns last season. If the Wildcats show any improvement on defense (they gave up 35 points per game last season, including a shutout of Bath), they\u2019ll be very tough.<\/em><\/p>\n

I believe Celina is in play for the title as well, and you can never count out Wapakoneta, and Ottawa-Glandorf should be much improved this season.<\/em><\/p>\n

See what I\u2019m getting at? There aren\u2019t just one or two teams that are head and shoulders above the rest \u2013 several teams return a lot of talent.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: I thought Crestview would be a bigger favorite to win the NWC. Why weren\u2019t they picked by a wider margin? Name withheld upon request<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I have to admit I was a bit surprised by the results.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Northwest Conference coaches voted in that poll, and it was all done anonymously. The only person who saw all of the ballots was me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Without checking with each of the coaches for their reasoning, I\u2019m going to say this \u2013 it seems the majority of the team, the defending champion is considered the champ until someone knocks them off.<\/em><\/p>\n

Spencerville was last year\u2019s outright championship, and before that, head coach Chris Sommers won three consecutive championships at Delphos Jefferson.<\/em><\/p>\n

In some ways, it seems silly to pick against the Bearcats, but then again, Crestview returns some outstanding talent.<\/em><\/p>\n

No disrespect to any NWC teams, but I believe Crestview or Spencerville will win the conference title this season, but there doesn\u2019t seem to be the balance like the WBL. However, titles aren\u2019t won on paper, and all teams know that.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Is Urban Meyer going to keep his job? Name withheld upon request<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Long answer short: your guess is as good as mine.<\/em><\/p>\n

If I have to expand on that a bit, I\u2019ll say yes, I think so. Could there be some sort of suspension, perhaps a fine of sorts, or a public reprimand? Yes, any or all of those could be possible. We should know the outcome soon.<\/em><\/p>\n

Without rehashing the entire situation, I\u2019ll say this. I feel bad for the children of Zach and Courtney Smith. They don\u2019t deserve any of this.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: What\u2019s going to happen with the case involving the Cincinnati schools and OHSAA? Name withheld upon request<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: In case you haven\u2019t heard, Roger Bacon and several other southwest Ohio schools filed suit against the Ohio High School Athletic Association over a portion of the Competitive Balance Plan.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a lawyer, but I don\u2019t think they have a leg to stand on, and frankly, I\u2019m surprised they were even granted a temporary restraining order.<\/em><\/p>\n

I do expect a resolution fairly soon, and the schools involved very well may not like it.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you have questions for next week\u2019s Monday Mailbag, please email them to sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>. You may choose to have your name used or withheld. Questions must be received by 5 p.m. each Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor The Monday Mailbag is one of the newest features added to our sports coverage. Today\u2019s questions, which were chosen at random, center around high school football and Urban Meyer. However, questions may be submitted about any sport at the high school, collegiate or professional level. Q: Why did you pick Van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 23:48:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}