Photo by Nick Henthorn Pictured are the Ohio All Stars. Front row, from left, are Taison Starr (Barnesville), Kaden Johnson (River), Baron Lucey (Martins Ferry), Parker Hutton (Harrison Central), Drew White (Bellaire), Lee Anthony Sewell (Sateubenville), JJ Barton (Dover) and Jason Costello (Barnesville). . Second row, from left, Luke Detling (Barnesville), Ryan Gigax (Dover), Ben Wach (Shadyside), Kabel Isaly (River), Cole Thoburn (St. Clairsville), Brady Hastings (Dover), Sabron Felton (Steubenville) and Dorian Burchett (East Liverpool). Third row, from left, are Mac Mac Pettigrew (Bellaire), Savier Faulks (Steubenville), Koen Eagon (Buckeye Trail), Trenton Davis (East Liverpool), Andrew Leiffer (Martins Ferry)Alex Beaver (Union Local), Joey Simpson (Edison) and Peyton Gorby (Steubenville). Fourth row, from left, are Jaxson Mast (Dover), Perry Patrone (St. Clairsville), Graham Baker (Fort Frye), Jase Norman (Caldwell), Griffin Fogle (St. Clairsville), Hunter Boals (Harrison Central), JR Adams (St. Clairsville) and Brendan Grimm (Steubenville Catholic). Fifth row, from left, are assistant coaches David Nameth, Drew Case and Roger Herbert, Javin Harper (Steubenville), Jacob Meager (St. Clairsville) and assistant coaches Ty Kenney, Bill Bryant and Cain Noble. Sixth row, from left, are assistant coaches Mark Smith and A.J. Barsch, head coach Anthony Hayes, and assistant coach Ian White.

WHEELING — The players have practiced, the coaches have gameplanned, and all have eagerly waited over the past week. The wait is over Saturday evening for the 78th Annual OVAC Rudy Mumley All-Star Football Game, with two rosters made up of of All-Conference, All-Valley and All-State stars converging on Wheeling Island Stadium for a 7:15 faceoff.

The long-running game has served as a final goodbye for a graduating class of OVAC athletes, but also as a celebration of the elite talent that inhabit the conference. This year, according to the coaches who have now spent a week practicing with their respective squads, is no different.

“The talent’s incredible,” Ohio head coach Anthony Hayes said. “Anytime you’re dealing with the best of the best of the Ohio side of the valley, it makes it pretty fun for the coach to get to pick those kids, and it’s very difficult because there’s so many young men deserving of this great honor. But we feel like we’ve got a pretty good selection of players, not just great football players but high-character kids who come from excellent programs, who were very well-coached.”

“They’re very cerebral, football-smart,” West Virginia head coach Frank Sisinni said. “We say it once or twice and they’ve got it. There aren’t a whole lot of repetitions, once they get it we move on. This is the elite and the top of the conference when it comes to ability so from every position across the field we’re just putting our system in and they’re embracing it and having fun with it.”

Hayes and Sisinni- who lead Harrison Central and Weir in the fall, respectively- doubtless have stacked rosters, but the two opposing sides also seen opposing strengths on their rosters.

Hayes sees his team favoring the big bruisers along the line as the tip of the spear.

“We always try to build a football team around what we can do up-front,” the Huskies head coach said. “The game of football has always been won and lost at the line of scrimmage. We feel pretty good about those groups of kids, we feel like that’s definitely a strength for us, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

“I was very pleased with our defensive line, we have a really nice linebacker core- physical guys who are capable also of dropping back into coverage. On the back end we feel very athletic. We’re not real tall on the back end but we’re very athletic. We understand the threats that West Virginia can pose to us especially with the really good quarterbacks they have. We want to drill that into our kids, the great challenge that lies ahead.”

As Hayes alluded to, West Virginia is brimming over with talent at the skill positions, namely their quarterback room, where they have five QB’s, though Sisinni suggested his staff was looking at the trio of University’s Luke Hudson, Linsly’s Atley Cowan and Morgantown’s Maddox Bowers to be under center, with Cameron’s Colson Wichterman and Weir’s Malachi Stromile seeing their reps more on defense- or, in Stromile’s case, at wide receiver- than at quarterback.

“We’re very strong at quarterback,” Sisinni said. “We’re very skilled on the perimeter as well and that’s kind of how it was developed based on the best of the best and trying to get size and speed out there the best we can.”

The Weir headman said that he expects Wheeling Central’s Lucca Ferrera, Wheeling Park’s Derek Croghan, John Marshall’s Scott Schenerlein, Weir’s Anthony Zorbini and Magnolia’s Jaydin Lynch to start across the offensive line, with Weir’s Corey Lyons starting the game at tailback, Morgantown’s Nick DiProspero at tightend, and Parkersburg South’s Triston Walker, Wheeling Park’s Keohn Stephens and Stromile starting at receiver.

Whoever is out there at the start of the game is sure to split snaps with the other talents at each position though, as both coaches spoke about rotating their players early and often.

“We plan on rotating everybody in,” Hayes said. “We feel comfortable with the kids we have and we think any kid we put in can do the job we need them to do. We’re two-deep at every position, at least, and lots of guys are getting reps at multiple positions. We anticipate playing everybody on both sides of the ball.”

West Virginia defeated Ohio 13-9 last year, though with a new coaching staff and new roster, revenge is not the central message for Hayes’ crew.

“History’s a great teacher,” Hayes said. “But I think moreso, and this goes along with our team’s philosophy at Harrison Central, it’s the old adage ‘you never get ahead by looking behind.’ This is a new team for Ohio and a new team from West Virginia, but the goal for us is to beat West Virginia. Our side of the river selected us to put together a team that is worthy of winning this all-star game. It’s incumbent upon us to do our absolute best and our kids know that.”

Being at your best means having a game plan that is both effective and efficient, with the two teams only having five days together to practice.

Sisinni has taken it upon himself and his assistants to tailor a playbook that incorpaorates the play styles of multiple different schools- and utilizing personnel from whichever school they are aiming to emulate.

“These boys coming in from different high schools, and the tremendous job that their high schools and coaches have done with them, now we get to capitalize on those things that we picked them on, their traits and their abilities that have made them all stars,” Sisinni said.

“What we are trying to do is to marry all of it and get some of the philosophies to play into our philosophies. Maybe one team wants to pull- Wheeling Central’s a pulling team, so when we do our pulling plays, we’ll have Wheeling Central kids who like to do that. Certain quarterbacks like to roll out, there’s certain things you might want to do with those guys.”

Despite their short time together both teams feel prepared going into Saturday night.

“The thing that’s stood out the most, and I’m sure this is likewise for coach Sisinni, but it’s that there was a team full of kids who had to buy in in a short amount of time, and these kids have done an excellent job of meshing together,” Hayes said. “It’s almost as if these kids have been on the same team all year. That’s what’s stood out the most, how easily these kids turned into Team Ohio.”

“A lot of the time you get the same concepts but the language is different from school to school,” Sisinni. “It’s really getting them on the same language this week.

“This is the shortest time period in OVAC history. Years ago teams used to report for two weeks, now they’ve shortened it down to a five-day window. We have to really watch what we’re trying to teach because we want them playing fast. We don’t want them thinking a whole lot because when you’re thinking then your feet slow down.”

This is both men’s first time as head coaches in the OVAC All-Star Game, although Sisinni noted he had been an assistant coach for the 2010 game as well as the 2017 W.Va. North-South All Star Game.