We're In For A Treat

Mike Zmijanac will coach his first football game for the Ringgold Rams on Friday August 24th 2018 against Chartiers Valley (CV) at Chartiers Valley's football stadium. Zmijanac was the head coach for the Aliquippa Quips for 21 seasons (1997-2017). He would later get fired by the Aliquippa school board on Wednesday February 21st 2018. During his coaching time at Aliquippa, he had an overall record of 237-36 and coached Aliquippa to six WPIAL football championships and one PIAA football championship.

Zmijanac has coached a lot of high school football players; a good amount of them play or played in the NFL like Jon Baldwin, Tommie Campbell and Darrelle Revis. The minute Zmijanac first walked onto Ringgold's field, he knew that he was going have to work as hard as he did in Aliquippa to get Ringgold to become good again. Ringgold's overall record was 3-6 last season. If he is able to coach the Rams to a winning season this year that will make the whole school district of Ringgold very happy. Ringgold's schedule is not easy as they have to face tough section opponents like Thomas Jefferson (won the WPIAL 4A Boys' Football Championship last season), Belle Vernon, Trinity and West Mifflin. Ringgold will also play Gateway in a non-section game in late September. And, we all know how good Gateway is.

Ringgold's schedule is not easy; so we should see how well Zmijanac will perform in his first season coaching for the team. If Zmijanac is able to get Ringgold to the playoffs, we might have to consider him as the G.O.A.T because of his ability to make more than one WPIAL high school football team great.

Chartiers Valley is a team that is looking to make the WPIAL playoffs for the first time since 2015. The Colts have not had a winning record in the regular season since 2009 and have not won a WPIAL playoff football game since 2007. If the Colts are able to beat Ringgold in Week 0, it might be the motivation they could have for the rest of the season to know that they cannot be stopped by any other team.

Mike Zmijanac has been through a lot of in his time coaching WPIAL football. He has been preparing for weeks to have a game plan to beat Chartiers Valley. He will walk into CV on Friday knowing what his team is going to do to make sure that they win the game. What Chartiers Valley needs to do to beat Ringgold on Friday is to prepare and have a game plan that is better and more prepared than Ringgold's game plan.

Both CV and Ringgold want to have good starts this season and both schools want to get back to the WPIAL playoffs and be known as "The Shocker Team" in their section and conference. CV will either have junior Griffin Beattie or sophomore Socrates Boulis start at quarterback on Friday against Ringgold. The Colts starting quarterback from last season, Reed Bruggeman, graduated last year so either Griffin or Socrates will have to step up with Bruggeman's departure. Bruggeman threw for 1,690 yards and threw 19 touchdowns last season. The Ringgold Rams will either have junior Jacob Duncan or junior John Warren start at quarterback for the Rams on Friday against CV. The Rams starting quarterback from last season, Caleb Eisel, graduated last year so either Jacob or John will have to step up with Eisel's departure. Eisel threw for 1,036 yards and threw 9 touchdowns last season. He did not throw any interceptions last season and that stat was pretty interesting.

The game between Ringgold and CV on Friday is going to be more intense than people think it will be. Both of these teams are tired of not being considered good in their section and they both want to make a statement and we'll see which one of these teams can start the season with a fantastic start on Friday.