Fourteen of central Ohio’s 49 playoff-bound high school football teams spent the first round of the OHSAA playoffs watching instead of playing, and on Friday, Nov. 6, they will learn whether the week off was a reward or a risk. The rested teams, including undefeated Gahanna Lincoln, Watterson, Big Walnut and Danville, all open at home in regional quarterfinals, according to reporting by The Columbus Dispatch, and their coaches do not agree on whether the bye helps.
Danville may be the clearest test case. The Blue Devils, one of six undefeated central Ohio teams entering the postseason, earned the No. 2 seed in Division VII, Region 27 after outscoring their opponents by 416 points in the regular season, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Danville hosts 10th-seeded Lucas on Nov. 6, two weeks removed from its last competitive snap.
The bye is still a new feature of Ohio’s postseason. This is the second straight year the top four teams in each of the state’s 28 regions, across seven divisions, have received a first-round bye, a change The Columbus Dispatch reported was necessitated when the OHSAA trimmed the playoff field from 16 teams per region to 12 in June 2025. The opening round on Oct. 30 belonged to the lower seeds, while the top seeds waited, healed and scouted.
Danville coach Matt Blum told The Columbus Dispatch that whether a bye helps depends on the roster living through it. A year ago his young Blue Devils finished 5-5, then crushed their first two playoff opponents by a combined 113-8 on the way to a fourth straight regional final. “We would not have done well at all with a bye [last year],” Blum told The Columbus Dispatch. “We needed to keep playing, especially with as young as we were. We needed the game prep. We needed the game and that mental focus.”
This fall, Blum told The Columbus Dispatch, the calculation has flipped: “This year, we have a lot of guys back and a junior- and senior-heavy group, so I am not as worried about it because this team has had a lot of experience and a lot of reps.” A veteran team, in other words, may absorb a quiet week that would dull a young one.
The first season of evidence leaned toward the rested teams. Teams coming off byes went 85-27 statewide last fall and 12-4 in central Ohio, according to figures reported by The Columbus Dispatch. Columbus Academy coach Robin Miller told The Columbus Dispatch the break is “a huge advantage, I think, and a well-deserved break for the kids, physically but also emotionally and mentally,” adding that his team still lifted and practiced, but without “the physical toll a Friday night has on the kids.”
Academy, 7-3 and the third seed in Division V, Region 19, is one of six local teams to earn a bye in both years, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The others are Big Walnut (10-0), Licking Valley (10-0), London (8-2), two-time reigning state champion Watterson (9-0) and West Jefferson (9-1).
Not every coach is a convert. Canal Winchester, now 8-3, took the fifth seed in Division II, Region 7, one spot shy of a bye, and interim coach Corey Coe told The Columbus Dispatch he was happy to have played last week even before a wild 43-37 win over 12th-seeded Ashland. “I don’t like [byes],” Coe told The Columbus Dispatch. “Last year, it just felt weird for me. I felt like it was hard for me to get our defensive guys locked in because you don’t know who your opponent is. You try to watch film on both of them.” Canal Winchester visits fourth-seeded New Albany on Nov. 6.
Others tried to have it both ways. Olentangy Liberty coach John Sansbury told The Columbus Dispatch that a first-round win over Newark last year fueled his Patriots into a 17-0 upset of Olentangy, while this year Liberty itself is the fourth seed in Division I, Region 3. At Gahanna Lincoln, defensive lineman Taiwan Johnson said the Lions planned to treat the bye week as normally as possible, telling The Columbus Dispatch: “We are going to treat it like we still have a game.”
The deeper 2025 numbers, reported by The Columbus Dispatch, suggest the bye protected the top seeds most. First and second seeds went a combined 50-6 in the regional quarterfinals, but third seeds were 18-10 and fourth seeds 17-11. Only two teams, Coldwater and Toledo Central Catholic, won their regions without a bye. Miller summed up the remaining doubt for The Columbus Dispatch: once the game kicks off it is “just a tough football game against a really good opponent,” but there is still an element of “Are we rusty?” after two weeks without live football.
What happens next arrives Friday, Nov. 6, when every rested central Ohio team plays a home regional quarterfinal: Gahanna Lincoln, Upper Arlington, Worthington Kilbourne and Olentangy Liberty in Division I, Region 3; Watterson, Big Walnut and New Albany in Division II, Region 7; Licking Valley and East in Division III, Region 11; Johnstown, London, Columbus Academy, West Jefferson and Danville in their regions, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Winners advance to the regional semifinals, and by late Friday night central Ohio will have a much larger sample for the argument its coaches have been having all week.
Photo: Northern-Virginia-Photographer, CC BY-SA