By Craig Dunn
Logan Daily News

LOGAN — A funny thing happened to the Louisville Leopards on their way to a state football championship.

They lost. In the opening round, no less.

Columbus Marion-Franklin’s 14-7 upset of the Leopards last Friday — played AT Louisville, by the way — has to rate as not only the upset of the season but maybe the biggest shocker of the last several years in the early rounds of the state playoffs.
While there have been several instances of No. 8 regional seeds beating No. 1 seeds in the past, a No. 8 defeating a state Associated Press Division II poll champion — and a team expected in many quarters to reach the state Division II finals, if not win the whole darn shootin’ match — on its home field is something else altogether.

Thus, the Logan Chieftains’ path to a potential state Division II championship thus won’t run through Louisville after all. But plenty of minefields still remain along the road to Massillon for the Purple & White.

Friday’s Logan-Brookhaven winner takes on either Marion-Franklin or Lewis Center Olentangy Orange, a school in just its second season of football, in the Region 7 finals next Friday, Nov. 20, at a neutral site to be determined after this weekend’s games.

Obviously, Marion-Franklin’s no slouch. The Red Devils finished in a three-way tie with powerful Eastmoor Academy and another DII Region 7 playoff qualifier, Walnut Ridge, for the Columbus City League South Division title.

Not only did Walnut Ridge give Brookhaven all it could handle last week in the opening round of the Region 7 playoffs — the Scots let a 20-6 lead get away and lost to the Bearcats 27-20 in overtime — but Marion-Franklin came close to beating Brookhaven as well, with the Bearcats edging the Red Devils 23-21 in the season opener for both teams.

Not a record, but close: Logan High School activities director said a total of 4,514 tickets were sold for last Friday’s Logan-Canal Winchester playoff game at Logan Chieftain Stadium… although, counting the two bands, workers, media and the teams themselves, he estimates there were around 4,900 people in the house.

The official attendance of 4,568 for the inaugural football game played in Logan Chieftain Stadium on Aug. 22, 2008, thus remains the official record.

Why the Chiefs were bumped: Gahanna-Lincoln High School was originally planned as the site for the Logan-Brookhaven game. Logan players and coaches were even told as such after last Friday night’s game.

However, that all changed Saturday when Gahanna-Lincoln’s boys soccer team qualified for the state Division I tournament.

Logan-Hocking Local School District Superintendent Steve Stirn, who is also president of the OHSAA Board of Directors, noted the football game was moved because there was a chance the Lions could play in the state finals Friday… and that indeed wound up being the case after Gahanna won its state semifinal Tuesday night.

Along the same lines that a school can’t host a neutral-site playoff game if its football team is playing elsewhere on the same night, Gahanna-Lincoln was taken out of the mix for the same reason to allow school officials and potential game workers to attend their school’s tournament game.

The guy in the red hat: The Chiefs have played games televised outside Hocking County before, including their 33-14 season-opening victory at Lancaster, but always on tape delay. Last Friday’s playoff win over Canal Winchester is believed to be the first time a Logan football game was telecast live.

SportsTime Ohio has exclusive rights to all live Ohio High School Athletic Association telecasts. STO, which sub-contracted production of the game to the Ohio News Network, carried the game live and allowed ONN to show it on tape delay.

If you thought a few time-outs were long, and if you thought there were a couple unusually-long delays (especially prior to the opening kickoff), you were correct. Since the game was live, ONN had a producer on the sidelines — wearing the trademark red hat you see at college and professional games — who signaled the officials when to allow play to begin after a commercial.

Angle picking up steam: You can count a couple former Ohio State football players who are sold on two-time Southeastern Ohio Athletic League Player of the Year Patrick Angle as a college Division I quarterback.

Former OSU quarterback Greg Frey, who was the color analyst for the Logan-CW game, and former Buckeye Jerry Rudzinski of ONN are both high on the abilities of Logan’s record-setting quarterback.

Frey constantly praised Angle during Friday’s telecast and Rudzinski has been in Angle’s corner all season long on ONN’s weekly Thursday night weekend preview shows.

It’s hard to believe that Angle is not being heavily recruited by DI colleges… but they’ll sure enough find it awfully hard to deny his talent if the Chiefs maintain a high profile in the playoffs.

Down the road: With Louisville now out of the picture, more and more state-wide media outlets and prep football gurus are jumping on the Logan bandwagon and predicting the Chiefs will not only win Region 7 but will go all the way to a state title.

But while the Chiefs have adopted the mantra of “If you’re in it, you can win it” and are determined to play a 15-game schedule this season, they continue to focus on their opponents game-by-game.

Here in the Chieftain Notebook, however, we can take a peek down the playoff road and see what could be in store for the Purple & White.

Assuming the Chiefs indeed continue their playoff success, their regional final game would be against either Marion-Franklin or Olentangy Orange somewhere in the metro Columbus area next Friday, as mentioned earlier.

After that, the state semifinals match the Region 7 champion against the Cincinnati-area Region 8 survivor in a game that would probably be played in the Dayton area — more than likely Dayton Welcome Stadium. The Chiefs have played there once: 26 years ago, a 48-0 loss to Dayton Dunbar on a rainy Saturday night late in the 1983 season.

Region 8 is down to 11-0 Cincinnati Turpin (the state’s only other undefeated DII team besides Logan), 8-3 Trotwood-Madison, 9-2 Winton Woods and 10-1 New Carlisle Tecumseh.

Although Turpin is undefeated, many prognosticators feel the Winton Woods-Tecumseh winner will eventually emerge from Region 8.

Okay, now the big one: if the Chiefs can navigate the playoff minefield and reach the state finals at Massillon Paul Brown Stadium on Friday, Dec. 4, against the Region 5 or Region 6 winner, the pool of teams still alive includes Mentor Lake Catholic, Canfield, Warren Howland and Ashland, all of whom are 10-1 in Region 5, and 10-1 Toledo St. Francis DeSales, 8-3 Avon Lake, 9-2 Toledo Central Catholic and 9-2 Maple Heights in Region 6.

Mentor Lake Catholic is the favorite to emerge as northern Ohio’s representative in the state finals. Mentor Lake Catholic-Logan, anyone?

Enough looking ahead. First thing’s first: Logan vs. Brookhaven this Friday night.