FB: Ohio Athletic Conference

[Raider 68]

Happy Report Day for the Raiders and most of the OAC

We're getting close to kickoff....finally

Going to be a hot camp this August. We'll see how they look in a week or so?

[D3fanboy]

Happy Report Day for the Raiders and most of the OAC

We're getting close to kickoff....finally

Going to be a hot camp this August. We'll see how they look in a week or so?

going to be a highly anticipated roster release.  the tentative roster only has six CB listed (5 soph/1 junior) with a total of 3 varsity tackles between the group...

[pradierguy]

Happy Report Day for the Raiders and most of the OAC

We're getting close to kickoff....finally

Going to be a hot camp this August. We'll see how they look in a week or so?

going to be a highly anticipated roster release.  the tentative roster only has six CB listed (5 soph/1 junior) with a total of 3 varsity tackles between the group...

Still no Liebler news? Very strange.

[Dr. Acula]

If there are no transfers coming in this would have to be the least experienced secondary we've seen.  In the past even if they graduated the entire secondary they still would have had several guys who had played a lot of snaps as backups taking their place.  Not the case on paper right now which is frightening considering how the secondary looked at times last year. 

[D3fanboy]

If there are no transfers coming in this would have to be the least experienced secondary we've seen.  In the past even if they graduated the entire secondary they still would have had several guys who had played a lot of snaps as backups taking their place.  Not the case on paper right now which is frightening considering how the secondary looked at times last year. 

The Raiders did get the transfer from Trine, who I believe was a starting CB

[pradierguy]

Kaleb Brown, Jerry Cooper Jr., and Gio Kennedy named team captains for the Purple Raiders.

[D3fanboy]

Kaleb Brown, Jerry Cooper Jr., and Gio Kennedy named team captains for the Purple Raiders.

Three absolute dawgs.  Best set of leaders Mount has had in a while

[D3fanboy]

https://oac.org/general/2025-26/Releases/20250815i0ha3n

Mount picked as preseason OAC favorite.  Dartt votes for Marietta.  Looks like 'Berg and ONU pretty much split 4/5th votes, and the rest of the OAC is a little higher on BW than 'Etta. The bottom of the OAC is...ehh...the bottom

[Dr. Acula]

Thank god Mount has a couple solid OOC games this year.  The bottom third is just plain bad.  Wilmington has well known challenges.  Cap and Ott?  Location alone should all but keep you out of the basement.  The continued ineptitude of the Columbus schools is something.  Not saying I expect Pentello-level squads, but maybe a decent season occasionally? 

[D3fanboy]

Thank god Mount has a couple solid OOC games this year.  The bottom third is just plain bad.  Wilmington has well known challenges.  Cap and Ott?  Location alone should all but keep you out of the basement.  The continued ineptitude of the Columbus schools is something.  Not saying I expect Pentello-level squads, but maybe a decent season occasionally? 

I really have no idea how there is not a SW/Central OH D3 playoff contender.  The amount of high quality HS football in that area is insane.  Cap and Ott have both had runs at being top level national teams, but then fell back into bottom level.  I think it's wild to say, but Wilmington probably has the best chance of being a solid contender...wow

[Walt]

I agree...location should be a major selling point for Capital recruiting, and to a lesser extent Otterbein.  Capital's close proximity to downtown Columbus and OSU campus should make it attractive.

However, being involved in high school football in Central Ohio over the last 20+ years, I think most of the kids playing for the large suburban schools in Central Ohio look down on D3. They all want to sign a LOI. They'll accept a $1,000 "scholarship" from a crappy D2 program just to say they got an athletic scholarship over a chance to start and maybe be a star at the D3 level. 

[Dr. Acula]

The other thing I've noticed in suburban Columbus is that many kids who are very good HS players and could be good D3 players opt to go to a big school and not play sports.  So the top talent is going D1/D2 and the kids who would be good D3 players are often choosing to hang it up.  Regardless, there are way too many quality HS players in central OH for Cap and Ott to be this bad.

[Raider 68]

In these times of financial stress for the small schools, I wonder where Otterbein and Capital stand? Other schools like Hiram, Wittenberg and even BW are really struggling. So as a talented athlete in Central Ohio, do they look elsewhere? Maybe the Pentello family has some future
players coming up??

[Walt]

Just took a look at Cap's & Otterbein's rosters.  Not sure how up to date they are but Cap is showing almost 90 incoming freshmen and most of them are from out of state (FL, TX, GA, etc).  Otterbein is only showing 20-25 freshmen and most are from Ohio.  I'm shocked to see so many out-of-state kids for Capital. Don't remember them having that many in previous years.

[Pat Coleman]

Capital may have enrollment pressures overall and might well need 90 incoming freshmen for football.