Inside Massillon’s Fearless Football Philosophy — Playing National Powers Fuels Ohio’s Most Historic Program

From Valdosta (Ga.) to DeMatha (Md.) to Glenville, Massillon’s willingness to face elite opponents has built one of the nation’s toughest schedules — and strengthened its championship foundation.

Massillon football coach Nate Moore watches on as his team plays Archbishop Moeller at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium on August 19, 2022. / Jeff Harwell, High School on SI

MASSILLON, Ohio – The walk into Paul Brown Tiger Stadium is one of the most iconic in the country when it comes to high school football. Walking out of the visitor’s locker room and onto the field is incredible as well.

A National Draw to Tiger Town

And that’s one of the reasons that Massillon head coach Nate Moore can schedule teams from all over the country to come play in Stark County against the Tigers.

“I talked to the guy from Cornerstone Christian in San Antonio (prior to Massillon defeating Cornerstone on Oct. 10),” Moore said via phone call on Oct. 2. “He has a good team, and they're fired up to make the trip and get a chance to come to Ohio and play in such a historic venue.”

The admiration for one of the most famous programs in high school football history – not just in Ohio, but in the United States – has been a draw for Moore to put together a schedule annually since taking over as the head coach prior to the 2015 season.

“The further you get outside of our immediate area, the amount of respect for Massillon football and the history and its place in high school football broadly is well received, well respected,” Moore said. “We often hear compliments from the fans and parents of the visiting teams whether it's following a win or a loss, that the experience was great, and the atmosphere was great. It's definitely something that those teams that take that opportunity really enjoy.”

And the Tigers don’t just schedule anybody from out-of-state – they schedule some of the best of the best.

In fact, Massillon has started the last three seasons about as tough as anyone in the state, opening the 2022 season against Archbishop Moeller, the 2023 campaign against Valdosta (Georgia), who is a 24-time Georgia state champion and six-time national champion, and this season against Glenville, who was the 2022 and 2023 Division IV state champion, 2024 Division IV state semifinalist and widely regarded as one of the best teams in Ohio this preseason.

Massillon defeated Valdosta on the way to an undefeated season and state championship in 2023, lost to Moeller 49-31 and lost to Glenville 33-27 in overtime. Those games – win or lose – prepare the Tigers for the season.

“I think your week one game is important because your whole preparation, whole offseason, everybody's looking to that and to sort of have a big game, an important game, a great challenge in the one hole, I think is really good for anybody,” Moore said. “It’s certainly been good for us even though we have lost our share of those week one games against high quality opponents, but it always makes us better.”

Building a Schedule Without Boundaries

Unlike teams who are in a conference, Massillon does not have games that they must play every season, giving them essentially 10 open weeks to schedule opponents. It’s a similar situation other teams in Northeast Ohio such as St. Edward or Archbishop Hoban find themselves in each year as well.

Massillon has two long-standing games – Week 2 against GlenOak and Week 10 against rival Canton McKinley. Other than that, it is up to Moore to find games for his team. While there are plenty of teams in the surrounding areas that Moore says thinks would be a perfect fit to fill the schedule, those games for one reason or another have never come together.

“We can only play the people that want to play us,” Moore said. “There are schools around us that would make a lot of sense to play, but for whatever reason, that usually doesn't happen.”

Moore then looks elsewhere.

And the list of schools he has gotten to make the trip to “Tiger Town” is quite impressive.

In just the last couple of seasons, the following teams have made the journey to Massillon:

2025

--Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School (North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association (NCISAA) state champions in 2024).

--Lewis J. Bennett/Olmsted/Middle Early College/East Football (New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) State champions in 2022 and state semifinalist in 2023).

--Cardinal Ritter College Prep (Missouri state champions in 2022 and 2023).

2024

--Bergen Catholic (four straight Non-Public A state championships in New Jersey).

--DeMatha (Washington Catholic Athletic Conference Champions 2024, no state championships because of playing in a private, non-affiliated athletic league. Seven-time national champion)

“We have to fill year in and year out, we've had to get really creative,” Moore said. “We've been fortunate enough to be able to bring in teams from out of the area or out of state to play games in those spots and typically, the teams that you're going to find in those spots are going to be pretty good. They're probably in a similar situation that we're in where they're pretty good, and there's a lot of teams around them that don't want to schedule them for whatever reason, and so we're able to link up with them hopefully at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.”

And then of course there is St. Edward, one of the most prolific programs in Division I in Ohio,

Winning the state championship in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and making the state semifinals in 2024. The Tigers and Eagles play each year and Massillon has now won four games in a row in the series.

“We have started restarted the series with St. Ed’s and we have that in the middle of the season, week five,” Moore said. “They're always going to be really good, and we definitely want to challenge our guys at the midpoint of the season.”

Massillon started off this season 1-2 and then 3-3 and with the OHSAA changing the playoff format to just 12 teams in each region this season instead of 16, the Tigers were in danger of possibly not making the playoffs after a loss to Clarkson North (Ontario, Canada) in week six.

National Respect, Local Pride

“We never want to be in a situation where we're having to rely on points to prove our worth for the playoffs in Division II, Region 7,” Moore said after the loss to Clarkson North. “But that’s the place we find ourselves in right now. I think we're sitting at nine (in the region) and we have three losses. I'm not sure what another one would do to us. Probably not good at that point.”

Moore and the Tigers never found out what another loss would do, as they turned their season around after the Clarkson North loss and ran the table the rest of the way, defeating Cardinal Ritter (Missouri), Cornerstone Christian (Texas), Warren Harding and then their 10th straight win over Canton McKinley to complete the regular season.

Massillon finished with a record of 7-3, earning the No. 3 seed in Division II, Region 7, which with it bring a first-round bye and a home game in the second round against either  Columbus Northland or North Canton Hoover on Friday, Nov. 1. The Tigers were also ranked No. 15 in the final 2025 High School on SI Ohio Top 25.

The Tigers have routinely made deep runs into the Division II postseason over the past eight seasons, finishing as the state champion in 2023, the state runner-up in 2018, 2019 and 202 and as a state semifinalist in 2017 and 2022.

If they are to make another deep run this season, they can look back at their schedule as one of the reasons why, including the three losses.

Hard Lessons, Stronger Teams

“We don't like losing, but it's a tremendous learning opportunity,” Moore said. “If it's about development and the process, you have to eat some punches sometimes and keep moving forward. If you want to be good, you have to play good people.”

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