Brownsville leaving WPIAL football for independent schedule

By: Chris Harlan
Saturday, October 23, 2021 | 3:24 PM

Leaving WPIAL football was an idea Brownsville athletic director Scott Roebuck once was adamantly against, but now he agrees that drastic move is the best chance to save the program.

With the team mired in a 21-game losing streak, the Brownsville school board voted Thursday to follow the lead of some Fayette County neighbors and play an independent football schedule next fall.

“I think this was up for discussion maybe two or three years ago, and we were dead set against it,” Roebuck said. “Both the superintendent and myself along with a couple of board members have some football background. But this year has kind of been that last straw where we finally saw that it’s very possible we might not have a program unless we do something.”

Brownsville notified the WPIAL on Friday.

The Falcons are 0-7 with one forfeit this season, and opponents have outscored them 319-32. They’re 0-5 in the Class 3A Interstate and have one conference win over the past four seasons.

The team’s most recent winning regular season was in 2000, which also was the last time Brownsville qualified for the playoffs. That 21-year playoff drought will be the longest active in the WPIAL because Leechburg qualified this year.

All of those losses have taken a toll on the roster.

“We’ve had practices with nine guys showing up,” Roebuck said. “Most of this week, we probably averaged 13. We did dress 17 last night, but trying to hold practice — and give looks offensively and defensively — you can’t do it.”

The program owns a pair of WPIAL titles from 1940 and ’43 and was the Class 3A runner-up in 1997.

“It hurts to see the kids get out there and get their teeth kicked in every week,” said Roebuck, a Brownsville graduate and former Falcons football player. “We’ve got a good group of kids. They’re not in trouble. They keep their grades up. They’re just not able to compete right now at the 3A level because most of them are freshmen and sophomores.”

The school hopes the team’s absence from the WPIAL is only temporary, Roebuck said. For now, the team is committed to play an independent schedule for two years.

Brownsville will be the fourth struggling football team to leave the WPIAL in recent years. Two of the others, Albert Gallatin and Uniontown, are also in Fayette County, giving Brownsville nearby opponents to schedule. Both have seen measures of success since leaving, which encouraged Brownsville to make the move.

Albert Gallatin is 5-2 this season, its third as an independent team. This was the first independent season for Uniontown (2-3), which snapped a 35-game losing streak last month.

Roebuck said the move already has piqued interest in some students in his classes.

“I had a couple of guys come up to me, and they were excited,” Roebuck said. “They said, ‘Yeah, I think I’ll play now that we’ll get to play Albert Gallatin and we’ll get to play Uniontown.’

“So, I think it was a good move.”

Also, now that three Fayette County schools are playing independent schedules, Roebuck predicts others might consider joining them. Among those other county schools, Frazier is 0-8 this season and Connellsville is 0-9. Only Laurel Highlands (6-3) will qualify for the WPIAL playoffs.

“There are a couple of people trying to push a Fayette County league,” Roebuck said. “I don’t know how far that would go, but the whole county has been down football-wise. Maybe if we get a couple of other teams to do it, we could all help each other out.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: Brownsville