No bull: Wyomissing vs. Southern as big as they get when it comes to season-openers

Jim Roth of Southern Columbia and Bob Wolfrum of Wyomissing are the winningest active football coaches in Pennsylvania. They have won nearly 85 percentage of their games over the past 40 years.

One of those coaching icons will sit down for dinner Saturday staring at an 0-1 record.

If it’s Wolfrum he won’t be crying about it or second-guessing scheduling a team that has won seven consecutive PIAA championships.

“We’re not afraid of losing,” he said. “We’ve always tried to play big games like this.”

Southern Columbia at Wyomissing, featuring a pair of state-ranked teams with all the trimmings, qualifies as a big game with a capital “B.”

It’s arguably the biggest season-opener in Berks football history.

They’ll meet Saturday at 1:30 at Wolfrum Field.

Some of those Mifflin-Wilson openers of the recent past might qualify; the Mustangs and Bulldogs kicked off the season against each other 11 times between 2006-2020.

Some of those clashes were classics; fans often put their Labor Day weekend beach trips on hold for a day just to stick around and watch.

Wilson and Central Dauphin played a series of outstanding season-openers in recent years but that game bit the dust when the Mid-Penn Commonwealth went to nine-game league schedules and the Rams no longer had room on their card for the Bulldogs.

Wyomissing and Pottsville played some terrific openers from 2007-17 but that game eventually got pushed back to Week 2, then off the slate entirely when the Crimson Tide moved to the Colonial-Schuylkill League and couldn’t find a place on its schedule for the Spartans.

Wyomissing vs. Southern is easily the highlight of Week 1 in Berks football, but there are several other noteworthy match-ups:

• Daniel Boone and Exeter extend the longest continuous series in Berks football history when they meet in Birdsboro tonight. The Eagles, the preseason favorite in Section 2 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League, are the heavy favorite against a rebuilding Blazers team.
• Mick Vecchio will be Gov. Mifflin’s head coach for the first time in seven years when the Mustangs host Pleasant Valley. Vecchio will serve as acting head coach after the suspension of first-year head coach Nick Morrissey.
• Long-time Berks Catholic assistant Dave Stahler makes his head coaching debut with the Saints Friday when they host state-ranked Twin Valley, the Section 4 favorite.
• Wilson begins its 80^th season against Cheltenham in a game moved to Saturday at 1 and to a new location, Upper Merion.

None come close to seeing two of the premier small-school programs in the state clash for just the second time. Both teams are young, especially at quarterback, but that’s unlikely to diminish the intensity on the field or the impact of the game.

Wolfrum relishes top-shelf competition; he’s always looking to add games like this to Wyomissing’s schedule.

The Spartans and Tigers were initially scheduled to play at Wyomissing in 2020 but COVID-19 interrupted those plans. They eventualy met in 2021 at Southern Columbia.

Wolfrum is hopeful to continue to rivalry beyond this year; he believes Roth wants to as well.

Like Wyomissing, Southern Columbia has difficulty finding quality opponents.

Because of the power ratings that determine playoff qualification and positioning many teams are reluctant to risk an early loss by playing a state-ranked team.

Not Wyomissing.

“We try to schedule as tough as we can,” Wolfrum said.

In 1999 and 2000 Wyomissing opened the season against Mount Carmel, which was coming off a 1998 PIAA championship and on the way to another in 2000. Neither game was close, the Spartans losing 35-0 and 46-20.

Wolfrum never regretted scheduling those games.

“That gets you better,” he said of topflight competition. “I always thought if your opener was gonna be a big game, it made your offseason (training) go a lot better.

“I really don’t understand the schools that won’t play anybody because they’re afraid of losing. There’s no way you get better (if you play inferior opponents). As we say: ‘If you want to be a bullfighter, you’ve got to fight the bulls.’ ”