Sound advice from PA’s winningest coach, and other football notes

Jim Roth hasn’t won a state-record 461 football games by being fancy.

The 64-year-old Southern Columbia coach believes in the basics. He emphasizes blocking and tackling, and discipline. He uses a scaled-down Wing-T playbook. Believes in two-platoon football (not easy to pull off at a small school, and with a 40-man roster). And he doesn’t believe in burdening players with too much football work during the offseason.

“A lot of our emphasis in the offseason is more about (the players) becoming better athletes (not working on football drills),” Roth told MikeDragoSports.com this week as he prepares his team to play Wyomissing in the GoBigRecruiting.com Game of the Week. “I hear stories all the time about programs that are bringing kids in a couple of days a week and do it all summer long. We’ve never done that. We want our guys to mainly concentrate on lifting (and conditioning).”

It’s hard to argue with the results: Roth’s program has claimed 11 PIAA championships, more than any in the state. It has won four straight Class 2A titles and carries a 66-game winning streak — the longest in the nation — into Friday’s game at Tigers Stadium.

Roth has certainly coached talented players. His 2019 championship team featured five Division I players (unheard of at such a small schools), including Julian Fleming, a receiver who’s now at Ohio State.

Roth believes guys such as Fleming and Gavin Garcia, his star back this season and last year’s Pennsylvania Player of the Year in Class 2A, will take care of themselves.

He and his staff spend more developing guys who won’t be playing at the next level.

“A big part of our success is taking those kids that are average high school athletes, or even below average, and making those guys better, because they have a higher upside,” Roth said. “I think some coaches worry too much about focusing on the top players and putting too much emphasis on those guys; those guys are gonna get it done.

“I think what gets lost is the fact that you need to work with the guys who have the most upside; we to try to bring them along, raise their level as much as possible.”

His advice to younger coaches: Keep it simple.

Too many, Roth believes, try to run pro-style offenses with players who don’t have the skills to make such systems work.

“Everybody wants to run Spread,” he said, “and then they’re struggling to (find) something. Try to run the football.”

Roth plans on Southern’s season going the full 16 weeks, all the way into mid-December. He doesn’t want to over-work his players in the offseason.

“Even in the bigger schools most of the top athletes play other sports,” he said. “We try to make sure that we do enough in the offseason to improve our players, but we don’t want them burned out from doing football stuff when they up in August for regular practice.”

Big loss for CV

Football people around the mid-state are mourning the loss of one of Pennsylvania’s winningest — and most beloved — head coaches, Tim Rimpfel, who died last week at age 73.

Rimpfel won 307 games at Trinity, Bishop McDevitt and Cumberland Valley, including nine District 3 titles and a PIAA championship. His 1992 Cumberland Valley team went 15-0. Rimpfel retired from Cumberland Valley following the 2012 season.

He was gregarious and quick-witted and built an abiding loyalty with his players and assistant coaches.

“He was a master at not just the Xs and Os but at creating a team,” John Ritchie, who played at Cumberland Valley and in the NFL, told The Sentinel of Carlisle.

Winning not enough

Manheim Central is unbeaten and came away Friday with a rare victory in West Lawn — its first in 71 years — but Barons coach Dave Hahn was not overly joyed after beating Wilson 24-21.

“We’re not a postseason team right now,” Hahn insisted. “We may 5-0 but we are not a postseason team right now. That’s the problem with tonight; we weren’t thinking (only) about Wilson.”

Hahn was bothered by three early turnovers; at allowing a kickoff return for a touchdown; and with some killer offensive penalties in the red zone.

“I think we should’ve been up on them a lot more than that,” Hahn said of the final margin. “That’s not a typical Wilson team, and we’re better than that. I feel like we let that go. I’m happy for these guys, but as a coach I’m ticked.”

Manheim’s last victory at Wilson came in 1950.

The Bulldogs lead the series 8-5; it’s possible the two won’t meet again for a long time.

Freeman catching on

Twin Valley’s Trey Freeman needs just 82 receiving yards to move into Berks’ all-time Top 10.

He had five catches last week to become the Raiders’ all-time receiving leader, with 83 receptions.

He has 1,660 career receiving yards and is 450 away from the all-time Berks mark of 2,110, set by Wyomissing’s Nolan McCready from 1999-2001.

Freeman has 24 catches for 514 yards this season.

Joining the 4,000 club

Conrad Weiser’s Logan Klitsch needs 91 yards to become the ninth passer in Berks history to reach 4,000 in his career. He’s at 3,909 yards heading into Friday’s game against Schuylkill Valley and is on pace to become just the fourth passer in Berks history to reach 5,000 yards.

Back in business

After two straight weeks on the sidelines because of COVID complications Central Dauphin returned with a 50-21 win over Chambersburg last week. The Rams are 2-1, their lone loss coming in the season-opener at Wilson, 27-21.

They remain a top contender for the District 3 Class 6A title, and it appears they won’t see Mid-Penn Commonwealth rival Harrisburg during the regular season. Their game was canceled and is unlikely to be made up.

Missing Nick

There’s only one 1,000-yard rusher listed on maxpreps.com’s Pennsylvania leader board, Damon Crawley of Forest Hills. He has 1,132 yards. The list is not complete, of course. Gov. Mifflin’s Nick Singleton has rushed for 1,022 yards in five games.

Singleton’s 22 touchdowns are believed to be the most in the state at this point.

Maxpreps.com relies on individual teams to submit statistics, and many do not participate.