Region 14 Map & Teams

With our Red Riders entering the 2009 football season as a part of a brand new region (Region 14)....I thought it would be helpful to give everyone (myself included) and idea of where these other teams are in the region. If you've ever wondered where Genoa, Swanton or Otsego is....you can claim ignorance no more. Follow me for some mappy goodness.

Map
Here's the map, click on each helmet to pull up each team's name and get directions if need be. You may have to adjust the zoom to accurately click on each helmet as some schools are bunched together.

I was able to find helmet logos for 29 of the 30 teams. Only the Evergreen Vikings from Metamora (where?) didn't have an updated helmet at the fabulous MG Helmet site. Can't recommend that site enough.

Helmets
There's a lot of copycat helmet designs in this region. Not that it's only this region, most high school teams base their helmet logo off some other college or pro team. Region 14 has two Georgia copies (Galion & Genoa), a Chicago Bears copy (Clearview), a San Diego Charger copy (Milan Edison), sort of a Florida State copy (Chippewa) and a Indianapolis Colt copy (Clear Fork).

Only Orrville and Tontogany Otsego (both OHS) are the only Region 14 teams that have blank helmets. Otsego might also win the award for dullest uniforms in the state.

Travel
The sheer size of the district is another issue that some have brought up. The region runs from Lake Erie, as far west as Metamora, which is west of Toledo, all the way to the west side of Cleveland in the Sheffield/Elyria area.

The region runs as far south as Clear Fork, as far east as Doylestown, as far north as Metamora, which is mere miles from the Michigan border, and as far west as Van Wert and Paulding, which are both a short drive to the Indiana border.

In terms of drive time....a drive to Metamora from Orrville will run about 3 hours, same with a trip to Van Wert.

The award for longest drive goes to the stretch between Van Wert and Doylestown...a 3 hour and 7 minute trip.

Luckily, this will only affect 4 teams per season, the 5-8 playoff seeds that have to travel for a first round playoff game, and the hope is none of these "worst case" travel scenarios happen.

There is a cluster of teams along the Ohio Turnpike corridor, and a similar cluster along the Route 30 corridor. So, there are teams close to each other, but it's those outliers in Western Ohio (Ottawa-Glandorf, Van Wert and Paulding) and the four teams in Wayne Co. (Norwayne, Triway, Orrville and Chippewa) that really throw the geography of the region out of whack.

Playoff Sites
One big change, especially for Orrville, will be the new playoff sites that will no doubt be a result of this region change. Gone (at least for the next 2 years) will be the playoff games at Paul Brown in Massillon, or Fawcett Stadium in Canton, or Klinefelter Field at CCC. Those are all fields east of us, and being one of the easternmost teams in the region, we'll be heading west should we be fortunate enough to play in week 12 and beyond. I'm sure there are some nice fields out in Central and Western Ohio, but we've been pretty spoiled in this area. Some real first rate facilities in NE Ohio.

Region Strength
We'll talk about this as we get closer to the season, but Region 14 is not as strong as region 13. Our same number of computer points (18.85) from 2008 would have put us in 5th place in Region 14, but was not enough to qualify in region 13. However, in 2007, we finished 9th in region 13 but would have finished 14th in region 14. So I guess you never know. Winning takes care of itself no matter the region.

Enjoy the map. Hopefully we'll be acclamating ourself with the towns of the region as we travel down the playoff trail in 2009.