Glenville Preview

Cleveland Glenville, coached by long-time mentor Ted Ginn, has been one of Northeast Ohio’s power-house football teams for a number of years.  And for the second consecutive year they are opening the season on the road against the Massillon Tigers, a team that they defeated last year, 33-27 in overtime.

Recently, they have been competing in Division IV, a classification that is based on student enrollment.  But that will change following this year’s merger with Collinwood.  Only, they will not know their new division until a student count is made in September.  It could be Division III or it could be Division II.  Regardless, it will be a welcome change for all the other DIV schools, with the Tarblooders having won state championships there in 2022, 2023 and 2025.  In fact, last year they defeated Shelby in the final game, 45-7.

In the regular season, Glenville competes in the Senate Athletic League, within which they have won 175 straight games.  But they are not shy about scheduling top competition outside of the league.  This year they are facing Massillon (2023 DII champion), Olentangy Liberty (2024 DI champion), Football North (Canadian all-star team), Columbus Watterson (2024 and 2025 DIII champion) and Akron Hoban (DII annual contender).  And the Tarblooders usually hold their own in these games.  They also own a 61-13 overall record over the past five years, with a 24-2 mark in the playoffs.

But of course, they are also the beneficiary of a host of outstanding athletes that attend school at the Ginn Academy.  These players are added to the Glenville roster without the disadvantage of a competitive advantage adjustment to enrollment, which is totally within the OHSAA rules.  In this regard, a student that attends a school that does not have sports is permitted to play for any other school within the school district that he resides.  Thus, Glenville has been able to assemble a team stocked many of the best players from the City of Cleveland.

“It’s a great challenge ahead of us,” said Massillon head coach Nate Moore at the weekly Touchdown Club meeting.  “They beat us last year.  But we just want to take care of our business.  We’re the team everyone is talking about.  But we have to prove that every day.  All of our guys are working hard.  We’ve had a great off-season.  We really felt good about our camp.   We made a lot of progress.  But there’s a lot of work to be done yet.  We have 78 guys that all have the same mindset, to have us in a good position on Friday night.”

The Tarblooders return six starters on offense and four on defense.  But don’t let that fool you.  They have plenty of athletes waiting their turns.  In fact, ten players have committed to play for various teams at the Division 1 college level.  Here’s a position-by-position breakdown:

• Quarterback – The starter is senior LaMarques Greenwood (6’-0”, 185), who returned to Glenville after a year at Cleveland Heights. Last year for Heights he threw for 1,118 yards and 15 touchdowns.  He also has good speed and is a threat as a runner.  Last year he rushed for 547 yards and six touchdowns.
• Running backs – It’s running back by committee, but all are good. The best player is senior Da’Von McDougle (6’-0”, 200), will attend John Marshall next year.
• Wide receivers – This is a strength in that three of the starters are committed to Power-4 colleges: Junior Emiere Lemons (6’-3”, 205) (Penn State), junior Jaylen Edwards (5’-9”, 170) (Ohio State) and senior De’Anthony Crittenden (5’-9”, 170) (Indiana). Moore said that the Tigers will need to put pressure on the quarterback to control them.
• Tight end / fullback – Watch for senior Elijah Harden (6’-3”, 220) (Pittsburgh) at tight end and senior Lorenzo Smith (6’-3”, 235) (South Florida) at fullback.
• Offensive line – They are big up front and very physical, averaging 6’-2”, 280 lbs. Senior Eason Hankins (6’-4”, 235) is committed to Kent State.  Moore said that it will be a four quarter battle to see who can run the ball.  Someone is going to tap out.
• Defensive line – The 4-3 front seven is good. The best players on the line are senior Kaylon Bailey (6’-3”, 220) (Colorado) and Smith.
• Linebackers – McDougle is a 2-way player in the middle.
• Safeties – This group is the strength of the defense. They are very athletic, according to Moore.  They play both cover-1 and cover-0, with mostly man-to-man coverage.  The group includes junior Jaquan Gibson (Indiana), Edwards (2-way player, best in position), senior Garry Pritchett (Syracuse) and junior Cordale Scott (Miami of Ohio).

Moore introduced his co-captains at the meeting.  They include Braylon Gamble, Isaac Maxheimer, Ke’Aun Fowler.

Go Tigers!