2011 Football Preview: Colerain

[Eric Frantz]

Colerain (11-1, D-I R4 Semifinalist)

* Players to Watch – LB Jake Blust (6-1, 210, sr.), LB Joe Bolden (6-3, 220, sr.), OL Trae Clark (6-4, 330, sr.), DB Andre Jones (6-2, 195, sr.), LB David Moore (6-0, 180, sr.), RB Chris Davis (5-9, 170, jr.)

* Outlook – Head coach Tom Bolden has posted a 40-6 record in four seasons at Colerain and last year had arguably his most impressive team before. But a disappointing 24-23 loss to St. Xavier derailed the Cardinals state title plans. The bad news is Bolden has to replace a ton of talent. The good news is he’s got a ton coming back. Jones (61 tackles) has committed to Cincinnati and Bolden (considered one of Ohio’s Top 3 LBs) is headed to Michigan. Clark has offers from the likes of Michigan State, Arkansas, Kentucky, N.C. State and West Virginia. Davis (seven TDs) is one of the state’s best junior RBs.

[Walking Boss]

Can anyone tell me how Colerain is so consistently good? I didn't think Cincy had open enrollment, but is hard to imagine a city league type school being as consistently loaded as they are without open enrollment. Any thoughts?

[gouccats]

Colerain is actually a large suburban school located in Colerain Township. It pulls kids in from a rather large geographic area. It benefits significantly from a very strong youth football program called "Little Cards". Coach Coombs turned Colerain into a powerhouse and was able to sustain its success over many years. Coach Bolden has continued the successful run.

[Walking Boss]

gouc: Thanks for the info. Your lead pushed me to do some digging. They are a pretty large 'suburb' of 60K. They do actually have two high schools: Colerain and Northwest (R12). While Colerain is generally extremely strong, Northwest is pretty woeful.

From the District website, it appears that they have pretty liberal open-enrollment within the School District (form attached below).

This would lead me to believe that most of the talented players transfer to Colerain HS. Not that there is any nefarious about this, but it stands to reason that a suburb with 60K people, only 2 high schools, and open enrollment would be pretty darn strong. That is roughly the same size as Dublin School District enrollment area. If the best players from Scioto and Jerome were free to xfer to Coffman, Coffman would be every bit as dominant as Colerain, IMHO.

http://www.nwlsd.org/docs/requestintratransfer.pdf