Most coaches spend Thursday night walking through the game plan one more time and getting their guys off their feet. Dayton Dunbar HS (OH) will spend this Thursday night playing a full varsity game, then turn around and play another one Friday.
The Wolverines host Cincinnati Northwest on Thursday at 6pm, then face Dayton Stivers on Friday at 7pm.
Dunbar played at Trotwood-Madison HS last Friday, which puts the program at three games and 12 quarters in seven days, with two of those games coming in just over 24 hours.
Dunbar athletic director Deondra Wynn confirmed the schedule to the Dayton Daily News.
The Friday game is a makeup. Dunbar and Stivers were originally scheduled to meet August 28th, but that game was canceled during a stretch when Stivers' season was in doubt. On September 2nd, Dayton Public Schools canceled the Stivers season outright, citing low participation and injuries.
District leadership said the team could not "safely and responsibly continue the season."
That decision lasted about a day. Superintendent Dr. David Lawrence reversed it on September 3rd after hearing from Stivers parents.
The district attached conditions to the restart, including weekly health and safety updates for parents and protocols to monitor player safety. Stivers was back on the field the next night against New Miami.
Dunbar is 3-3 overall and 2-0 in Dayton City League play. The Wolverines opened with a 32-23 win at Columbus Briggs, dropped close ones to Cincinnati College Prep and St. Bernard-Elmwood Place, then beat Belmont 27-24 and Ponitz 40-8 to start league play. Trotwood-Madison handled them 51-6 last week.
For critics wondering how this could possibly happen, the state's rulebook allows all of it. OHSAA Rule 1.31 limits a player to four quarters in a single day, and Dunbar's schedule never asks anyone to exceed that. There is no OHSAA regulation that prohibits games on consecutive days or requires a minimum rest period between contests.
The closest thing to a guardrail sits in the in-season practice guidelines, Rule 1.18.1, which tells programs to "consider limiting full contact on consecutive days." However, that language applies to practice. Thursday and Friday this week will be as full contact as football gets.
A rule that caps a kid at four quarters per day but says nothing about four more quarters 25 hours later feels like it was written with a different scenario in mind. Kids who play both ways at a program like Dunbar could log close to 200 snaps across those seven days. Very few coaches would ever script a week of practice that looks like that.
The good news for the Wolverines is an eight-day break on the back end. Dunbar returns to league play Saturday, October 17th against Thurgood Marshall.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.