Schmidt to lead New Bremen against Warren JFK
Chris Schmidt was tasked with the ultimate of rebuilding projects when he took over as head football coach at New Bremen in 2015.
Schmidt, a 1996 Bellefontaine High School graduate who served as head coach of the Chieftains from 2010 to 2012, was hired by New Bremen to turn around a squad that was stuck in a 24-game losing skid, the longest in Ohio at the time.
Block by block, Schmidt has been able to do something that few would have expected. He has pushed the Cardinals into the upper echelon of the powerful Midwest Athletic Conference, which consists of small-school elites like Coldwater, Marion Local and Minster.
After going 9-4 and reaching the regional finals last season, Schmidt has his team in the Division VII state championship game this fall. The Cardinals (9-2) face Warren John F Kennedy (9-2) at 1:15 p.m. Friday at Fortress Obetz.
“I really don’t think it has sunk in yet,” said Schmidt on Wednesday about playing for a state championship. “We have had so many big wins during this playoff run and, with the coronavirus situation, it has been a day-to-day mentality all season. We haven’t really been able to reflect on what we have done. I am sure when it’s all over and I get a chance to decompress a little, I will be able to reflect on everything we have accomplished this season.”
Given the task of trying to become competitive in one of the toughest football conferences in the state, Schmidt knew turning the program around would not happen over night.
“It’s just been a collective effort,” he said. “Everyone wanted to elevate the program. We talked about taking it one small step at a time and building on those small successes. The biggest thing is we wanted to make it fun again. It’s not fun when you are losing all the time.
“Our goal our first year was to just win a game because we had the longest losing streak in Ohio. Our second year we talked about winning both of our non-conference games. Then, we wanted to start being competitive in the MAC and beat a couple MAC teams. Last year, we went 9-4 and went to the regional final and we felt really good about the team we were going to have this year.”
Like the rest of the high school football programs in the state, there were a lot of anxious moments over the spring and summer for Schmidt and his players.
“We just didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said. “I knew we had the type of team that could make a playoff run, and I was just really hoping for our kids, especially our seniors, that they would have the opportunity to have a season. I didn’t want it to be a situation where we could only look back and think about what could have been.”
The Cardinals started off the season with a 20-0 win over Minster before losing to Marion Local, last year’s Division VII state champion, by a score of 21-13.
New Bremen bounced back with a 38-6 win over Delphos St. John’s.
Following a loss to Coldwater, which has advanced to the Division VI state championship game, the Cardinals dominated Anna (38-7) and Versailles (36-7) to finish off the regular season.
The Cardinals opened the playoffs with a 52-7 win over Southeastern and then beat fellow MAC member St. Henry 28-13.
“We’ve had so many big wins for our program,” said Schmidt. “We beat St. Henry on its home field. That would have been unheard of a few years ago.”
New Bremen’s run continued with a 16-8 win over Ft. Loramie, which set up a rematch with Marion Local in the regional final.
The Cardinals avenged their Week 2 loss by stunning the Flyers 24-17 on their own field.
“We played them tough the first time and we just told our guys that if we made a couple of more plays, we had a good chance to beat them,” said Schmidt. “Our seniors go out expecting to win every game.”
In last weekend’s state semifinal game, the Cardinals used a goal-line stand on a two-point conversion play in the final seconds to fight off Lima Central Catholic 28-26.
New Bremen will attempt to cap its playoff run with a win over JFK, a program from northeast Ohio that is very familiar with playoff success. The Eagles made it three games deep into the postseason in 2018 and advanced to the second round last year.
“They seem to be a hard-nosed team with some good athletes,” said Schmidt. “For us, we told our guys that we don’t need to change anything. We have to just keep doing what we have been doing. We have to be physical, take care of the football and play well on special teams. If we do those things, we should be in a position to win.”