Rating Massillon’s 2024 Strength of Schedule

It’s no secret that Massillon’s 2024 football schedule is loaded with quality competition and appears better than most previous schedules.  Three major opponents dot the slate, including three teams that are rated in the Top 100 nationally by Calpreps.com, including Bergen Catholic, the defending New Jersey state champion, Lakewood St. Edward, the 3-time defending Division I Ohio state champion, and DeMatha, last season’s No. 2 team in Maryland.  But how does this year’s schedule stack up numerically against previous Tiger teams?

Rating the Schedule

In order to rate a schedule one must first have a method of rating each individual opponent.  In that regard, a 3-point system has been selected, as follows:

• 3 points for a large parochial school.
• 2 points for a mid-sized parochial school or a public school that finishes in the Top 8 of their respective region in the Harbin computer rankings.
• 1 point for a public school that finishes below No. 8 or does not qualify for the playoffs.
• 0 points for a team that struggles to play football.

The overall schedule rating is then calculated by summing the individual ratings for all ten opponents.

For the 2024 Massillon schedule, points have been awarded as follows:

• NFL Academy – 2 points
• Canton GlenOak – 1 point
• Bergen Catholic – 3 points
• Canisius – 2 points
• Lakewood St. Edward – 3 points
• DeMatha – 3 points
• Football North – 1 point
• Warren Harding – 2 points
• Canton McKinley – 2 points

The sum of these ratings is 20.  Since the Tigers play only nine games, it is pro-rated to 22.2 as the final rating.

Comparing Seasons

The same rating process described above was applied to all of the Massillon teams back to 1964, which encompasses a span of 61 games.  Unfortunately, there was not enough opponent data available prior to this date.  The chart below shows the results of that effort.  Indeed, this year’s strength of schedule, with a rating of 22, surpasses that of all previous years.

Just behind are three teams that reached a schedule rating of 20, including 2003, 2020 and 2022.

The 2003 schedule included both Cleveland St. Ignatius and Lakewood St. Edward.  As did the 2020 Covid year schedule.  In 2022 Massillon faced Cincinnati Moeller and St. Edward.

Interestingly, the average schedule rating over the 61-year period is just 14.8, well below recent standards.  But, as the chart shows, the strength of schedule rating has been steadily increasing (except during the 2000s), from around 13 in the 1960s to around 20 today.

Strength of Schedule by Coach

The chart below shows a lot of variation among coaches in their schedule makeups.  Several factors have influenced this and the data shows much variation from coach to coach, a few of which are shown below:

• Large parochial schools – The first large parochial school wasn’t scheduled until Mike Currence put Cincinnati Moeller on the slate in 1981. Then, starting with Lee Owens, several of these schools started to appear.  But they disappeared under Jason Hall, who felt that the Massillon program was ill equipped due to declining enrollment to compete in these games.  They returned under Nate Moore, as the program rebounded and actually elevated itself to the level of the schools.
• All-American Conference – Prior to the introduction of the state playoffs, a team needed to produce an undefeated season to win a state championship. Given the strengths of teams across the conference, coaches opted to schedule weaker opponents in between conference games.  The AAC dissolved after the 1979 season.
• Playoff system – In the early days of the playoffs, very few teams qualified. It was therefore imperative to win a lot of games in order to qualify and scheduling a strong opponent or two could jeopardize that goal.  Now, with 16 teams qualifying, the risk has been reduced considerably.
• Independent school – Massillon is an independent school. As such, it has been extremely difficult to schedule games beyond Week 3 when most teams are in league play.  Several coaches have opted to fill out the schedule with inner-city teams, which are almost always available.  However, Coach Moore is not interested in that, but has found that the schools mostly available later in the season are in fact the large parochial schools.  Fortunately, his program is now equipped to handle that level of competition.

Success vs. Schedule

Do weaker schedules result in more wins?  Sometimes, yes; sometimes, no.  Mostly, there is more influence on a team’s success from the coaching end than from the schedule end.

Interestingly, Bob Commings had the weakest schedule and second best winning percentage, while his successor, Chuck Shuff, had the second weakest schedule, but the worst winning percentage.  Mike Currence won a lot of games with a weak schedule.  Nate Moore has won a lot of games with the strongest schedule.  So, as one Massillon assistant coach put it recently, “you win when you have the Jimmies and Joes.”  And right now Massillon has an abundance of those.