CLEVELAND — St. Edward head football coach Tom Lombardo is preparing for a showdown with Center Grove, which is near Indianapolis. This pits defending state champions in Ohio and Indiana against each other. St Edward won’t play an in-state opponent until week four.

“We don’t think ahead at all, to anyone,” Lombardo said. “So right now we’re just, Center Grove is our main concern.”

St. Edward isn’t part of a conference, so they form their own schedules each year. They traded film with Center Grove so they can properly prepare for each other.

“There are certain sites that show teams have open dates,” Lombardo said. “And we have some relationships with teams through the years that we’ve been playing, a couple of teams in the Washington D.C and the Maryland area.”

Lombardo said it takes time to plan out the games between the two schools, and he said it can be easy to get them to agree to play, since some of these out-of-state programs are also are seeking some stiffer competition. Lombardo said in the past they’ve agreed to play an out-of-state team for several seasons in a row.

“We’re real proud of the fact that we’re able to play this kind of schedule,” Lombardo said. “I think we have six of the top 100 teams in the max prep 100 right now on our schedule, starting with our first two.”

Coach Lombardo said that with a tougher schedule, they’ll be tested each week, preparing them for the competition they’ll face in the playoffs. 

“We’re playing our best ball by week 11,” Lombardo said. “The big stage of like, let’s say, the state championship, or semifinal game or regional final, isn’t as big because we’ve been in the moment already.”

MaxPreps.com ranks the Eagles as the 16th best high school team in the country, heading into 2023, and with a national ranking comes a national schedule that includes teams in Indiana, Maryland and Michigan.