Schedule quirk halts W&J-Waynesburg football series for 2026
Observer-Reporter
LATROBE — For the first time since 1989, Waynesburg and Washington & Jefferson will not play each other in football this fall.
It is a scheduling quirk in a growing Presidents’ Athletic Conference, which now stands at 12 football teams with the addition of Saint Francis.
With only eight conference games and 11 potential opponents, not everyone can play each other.
“It’s an unbalanced schedule,” PAC commissioner Joe Onderko said during PAC media day Tuesday at Saint Vincent. “We use an outside scheduling group and we give them parameters. We talked about a lot of different options in the AD’s group. We talked about protecting rivalries and a whole lot of different options. Where they landed after a long debate was to not protect anything. If someone goes off your schedule for a year, they go off your schedule for a year. We’ve set it up that if someone went off your schedule, they won’t be off there again until every team cycles through.”
Even if it is for only one year, it’s still odd for Washington & Jefferson coach Mike Sirianni to not see the Yellow Jackets on the schedule.
“It’ll be a little different not playing Waynesburg,” Sirianni said. “I think (Waynesburg) Coach (Larry Wilson) will do a good job there. He’s a great football mind. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do. It’ll be a little weird seeing them on tape, because they’ll be playing teams we are playing, but knowing we’re not going to play them.”
Wilson is in his first season at the helm at Waynesburg, so he’s new to the rivalry. He’ll have to wait a year before getting to experience it.
“To be honest when I found out we wouldn’t be playing them, there were so many other things going on that I had to prioritize, it kind of hit the back burner,” Wilson said. “We were able to get a JV game with them since they are right down the street. I look forward to the opportunity next year to get back to playing against them.”
Washington & Jefferson senior defensive lineman Antoine Smith will miss the opportunity to play the rival in his final season.
“It’s definitely a little strange,” Smith said. “We’ve played them every year and it’s a big rivalry game, so it’s weird to not be playing them.”
Washington & Jefferson and Waynesburg are not alone in rivalry games that were not scheduled recently.
Last year, Westminster and Geneva, one of football’s oldest rivalries, was not played and the Mercer County Cup was put on hold for a year because Grove City and Thiel did not play.
The PAC will move to a nine-game conference schedule beginning next season.
Sirianni was open to the idea of a designated rival for each team after the move to the nine-game schedule. It’d be similar to what the Big Ten does where each team has one rival that’s always on the schedule like Ohio State vs. Michigan, Indiana vs. Purdue, Northwestern vs. Illinois, etc.
“I think that now that we have 12 teams and we’re going to a nine-game (conference) schedule next year, that’s something we can talk about,” Sirianni said. “Westminster and Geneva didn’t play last year and that’s probably a bigger rivalry. Those two teams have played each other forever and Thiel and Grove City didn’t play. Those are games that need to be played. I’m sure we’ll talk about that as a conference and coaches.”
Onderko said nothing has been decided beyond 2027 on the future of the schedule.
“I’d say all options are on the table,” Onderko said. “We lost a member (Carnegie Mellon) a couple years ago and at the time we were looking at a division setup. We kind of had to abandon that, because our membership changed. We might consider that again, but there’s not really any point as long as Saint Francis is going through reclassification. If they are eligible as a full-time Division III member in 2028, that brings some different options to the table that we don’t have now.”
TRANSITION
A rebrand to the Red Wolves from the Red Flash is part of a major transition for the Saint Francis athletic programs.
A longtime member of the NCAA Division I FCS, Saint Francis begins its process of transitioning to Division III this fall.
Saint Francis will play a PAC schedule in all athletic programs for the next two years, before applying for reclassification and a full active membership into D-III in 2028.
The football team is in a state of transition too.
Only a dozen players returned from last year’s team that went winless leaving longtime coach Chris Villarrial with a rebuilding project.
“Whether it’s Division I, II, or III we build relationships with our student-athletes,” Villarrial said. “Regardless of the name we have or where we play it’s still football. We develop players and that’s something we’re going to keep doing.”
NEW COACHES
Wilson is not alone when it comes to new coaches in the PAC.
He is one of four coaches in their first year at the helm of a program.
Joining him are Bethany’s David Blake, Geneva’s Tom Contenta and Westminster’s EJ White.
Blake comes to Bethany after serving as special teams analyst at Kent State last year. Contenta was a longtime assistant and former player at Geneva. He was elevated to the head coaching position following the retirement of Geno DeMarco, who spent 33 seasons as Geneva’s head coach.
White was given the interim head coach tag after Scott Benzel left Westminster in March to take an assistant coaching position at Duke. White was the offensive coordinator for the Titans.
Though Villarrial is making his PAC debut this fall, he’s in his 17th season coaching at Saint Francis.