What's Next for the PTC?

If this goes like my last post, as soon as I get it all written and published, we will finally see some updated news on the subject and my blog post will be made irrelevant in a hurry (OK, "more" irrelevant).

In any case, I thought I would share what I have heard about the Portage Trail Conference, the sports association that every high school in the county (except Aurora) is a part of. It will be going through some changes this Fall and in the next few years, some of which remain to be ironed out.  

The first change is this fall, Streetsboro and Southeast will trade places in the league with Streetsboro moving to the Metro Division (larger schools) and Southeast moving to the County Division. The PTC basically functions as two separate leagues in that when a County Division school plays a Metro Division school, it doesn't count as a conference game in the standings; only games against teams in that school's division count. Each division has separate champions in every sport as well. The difference is that the PTC looks over enrollment every six years. If enrollment numbers change enough, then schools can be moved to a different division. For Streetsboro and Southeast, both schools are roughly the same size, but since the formation of the PTC in 2005 enrollment numbers have changed slightly and now Streetsboro is larger than Southeast. For Roosevelt, instead of having to make the trip down to Palmyra for several events a year now it's a much shorter drive to the north. It also means that in football, Roosevelt will have established, regular rivalries with every neighboring school in every cardinal direction — provided the non-conference game with Stow remains on the schedule. If I remember correctly from seeing this fall's football schedule, Streetsboro will visit Kent this year for our homecoming game. For Southeast, it means re-establishing rivalries with neighboring Rootstown and Waterloo from their days in the old Portage County League (PCL) and not having to make trips to Norton, Springfield or Coventry. In those regards, all schools will be able to save some money on travel costs.

The other big change comes the next fall (2012) when East Canton leaves the PTC and joins a different league. Since the announcement several weeks ago, there has been very little public information about potential schools to replace East Canton. The PTC would definitely like to keep an even number of teams in each division, so several neighboring schools have been mentioned as possible candidates. When the Record-Courier broke the story, most of the possible candidates mentioned were highly unlikely, mostly because they are all in well-established conferences of their own, so have little reason to want to join the PTC.  

Even though we've known since March that East Canton is leaving, there have been almost no updates in regards to potential new members. It doesn't help that the PTC has no online presence in terms of a website. Basically, I've been able to piece together a few developments by doing web searches from a few obscure news articles and message boards. What I do know for sure is that Barberton has expressed interest in joining the league and did submit an application.  I have not heard of any other serious inquiries, though the March 31 article that mentioned Barberton's application quoted Barberton athletic director Jay Glaze as saying "I'm sure we're not the only school that has applied." He also said, "We're interested in the PTC, definitely.  We feel we're a good fit for the league, and that the league is a good fit for us."  

When the news first broke about a potential new member, Barberton was my first thought and I was surprised the writer in the Record-Courier didn't mention them as a possibility. This Fall, Barberton will be an independent as they have withdrawn from the Suburban League and ended up pulling their application for the Northeast Ohio Conference. Not only is Barberton well within the league's footprint (it borders PTC member Norton), but it would fit in terms of enrollment, being just behind Roosevelt. On top of that, Barberton is no stranger to Roosevelt and Ravenna as they were all in the old Metro League and Western Reserve Conference South Division together as recently as Spring 2005.   

It will be interesting to see if Barberton is selected, but it's hard to tell since there has been almost no news on any other possible members outside a few messageboard rumors. Barberton fans seem to think the school won't get selected and some posters have even suggested that PTC members weren't too happy about adding Roosevelt, so the PTC will try and fill East Canton's spot with another smaller school to keep Streetsboro out of the county. If Barberton or another school larger than Streetsboro did join the conference, it would bump Streetsboro back to the County division until at least 2017. That could potentially upset the County Division schools simply because it would create the very enrollment disparity the PTC was designed to fix from the old PCL. The County Division already has some disparity between the 2 largest schools in the division (Streetsboro and Woodridge) and the six smaller schools (East Canton, Rootstown, Waterloo, Windham, Garfield, and Mogadore).  Bumping Streetsboro back to the County and having it there with Southeast and Woodridge would be less than favorable for the remaining five smaller schools.

For Roosevelt, having a school larger than the other current members would be most beneficial in football.  The state playoffs are determined by a computer, which awards points for wins depending on who a school plays.  There are more points for wins against teams in your size division (Roosevelt is in Division II for football) and even more points for beating a team from a larger division. Wins against teams from smaller divisions produce very little points because the computer "expects" the larger school to win.  There aren't any style points like in college football, so a 1-point win is the same as a 50-point win; there are no human pollsters to impress in regards to who makes or doesn't make the playoffs like in the BCS.  As it stands now, because the PTC Metro has eight teams, each school only gets three non-conference games. Once Roosevelt starts playing in conference, they have no chance to get any "bonus" points since every other school is smaller (all in Division III next season, including Ravenna), as I mentioned in my last blog post.  

See also:

• City Series left out in cold again in membership search