Besancon ready for higher expectations with Orrville football

Brent Besancon has been in uncomfortable situations before, taking over football programs with little history of recent success. Expectations were never high.

Now, as Orrville’s new head coach, Besancon will be on a bit of a different perch. Much is expected of the Red Riders, who won a state title as recently as seven seasons ago.

“Most of my jobs have been struggling programs,” said Besancon, who becomes just the sixth OHS head football coach since 1955. “This is just one that has been a program that I’ve grown up with and has a lot of history.”

The district announced Besancon’s appointment on Monday, Feb. 24. He previously was a head coach at Rittman and Smithville, New London, and most recently Mansfield Madison. His overall record is 52-70.

Don’t let that fool you, though. He has gone into some places, including Madison, where things looked bleak and prior success was nonexistent.

Besancon, 53, had a modest 3-17 record in two seasons at Madison. Before his arrival in Mansfield, though, the Rams won just two games in six seasons combined. The last time Madison won more than two was 2015.

Besancon had similar impacts at both New London and Rittman. At New London in 2007-08, Besancon took over a program that went 14-56 in the previous seven seasons and was 11-9 in two years.

He followed that by going 6-14 in two seasons at Rittman, which came after the Indians had won just once in three seasons and the program was on the verge of being eliminated due to lack of players. In Besancon’s second year there, Rittman enjoyed a rare .500 season.

“I want to win, make no bones about it,” Besancon said. “But I am proud of the accomplishments of the teams I’ve been involved with, who were the laughingstocks of their conferences and couldn’t string together a first-down series, let alone a few wins. We don’t like the moral victory of a loss, but it sure beats the alternative of the running clock.”

Besancon went 32-30 at Smithville from 2012-17, a stretch that included just one losing season and featured a pair of playoff trips, back when it wasn’t as easy to qualify.

Besancon replaces Matt Zuercher, whose contract was not renewed under cloudy circumstances after his renewal was recommended by the superintendent and athletic director and he had received a positive evaluation from within the building.

Zuercher’s teams were 12-19 in his three seasons, 10-11 the last two years. The Red Riders have struggled since before the pandemic, not having a winning season since 2019, which followed the team’s state title season of 2018.

His dismissal may be a good illustration of the expectations in Orrville. People around here expect wins and championships.

“Now I’m at a program where the expectations are so much higher that I expect the wins,” Besancon said. “I’m not starting from the ground up right now, and at Orrville I shouldn’t have to start from the ground up.”

The Red Riders struggled last year, but of their six losses, five were against teams that won at least one postseason game.

“This is a good job, and obviously, I’m going to have some challenges up front here,” Besancon said. “But I’m pretty confident that there’s always been talented kids there, and I haven’t heard any rumors that there will be any less talent there now.”