More of the area’s top high school football teams are facing national opponents. Is this the new trend?

High school football isn’t what it used to be. While there still are nearby rivalry games, those aren’t necessarily the only matchups that area teams, especially at larger schools, look forward to.

More schools are searching for ways to challenge themselves, and it’s becoming more common to see coaches schedule out-of-the-area competition to achieve that. St. Joseph’s Prep is no stranger to this. For years, the Prep has traveled to face other highly touted football programs in different states.

And on Friday, coach Tim Roken’s Hawks will open their season against American Heritage at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The game will be on ESPN2, the fifth time they will be highlighted on ESPN. But the three-time defending PIAA Class 6A champions aren’t the only program opening its season from afar.

For the first time, Roman Catholic flew out of state to kick off its season Friday night against Providence Day School in Charlotte. The Cahillites had their most successful season last year, with a PIAA 5A championship appearance, but lost to Harrisburg’s Bishop McDevitt in overtime.

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Rick Prete, the school’s coach since 2019, wants Roman to be considered a national powerhouse, and to do so, it has to schedule competition against “the best teams.”

“You have to give your kids an opportunity to compete against the best on a national schedule,” he said. “I think that it helps build your school’s profile, but it also helps build camaraderie within your team to travel and do things the way a college program would do it.”

The Philadelphia Catholic League is one of the toughest conferences in the state. Last season, three programs — St. Joe’s Prep at 6A, Roman Catholic at 5A, and Bonner-Prendergast at 4A — made a state final appearance. The Prep and Bonner-Prendie won titles.

Roken believes the national competition “has been the recipe to success” before his team gets into league play. But schools outside the PCL are looking for competition beyond the region, too.

Downingtown West, last year’s District 1 champions, will face Bethlehem Freedom of District 11 on Saturday. Then the Whippets will travel to Salesianum School in Wilmington to face St. John’s College High School of Washington, D.C., on Aug. 29.

“One of the hidden things about being a head coach in high school is that you’re not only the head coach, but you’re also the general manager of the team,“ said Downingtown West coach Tom Kline. ”Between myself and our athletic department, we kind of work out all those logistics throughout the season. As I plan a game out, I’m also looking into travel time, if the kids need to get out of school early. Do we need charter buses to get to a place? Do we need stay over? There’s a lot of things that go into it."

For most of these schools, putting together a schedule for the following season begins near the end of the current one, since it takes time to get travel and other expenses approved by the school. Most of the cost for these trips, however, is covered by the team’s booster clubs, alumni donations, and fundraising.

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Malvern Prep, which opens its season against La Salle College High School on Aug. 29 at Ocean City High School in New Jersey, also sees the value in scheduling outside competition before facing Inter-Academic League opponents but recognizes the resources and support it takes to schedule these games, something not every school can do.

“Last year, I’ll give you an example, we raised $125,000 during the football season and a little bit before, and we spent about $115,000 of that on the program,” said Malvern Prep coach Dave Gueriera. “It’s easy to look at us and say, ‘Well, they’re getting money from the school.’ In actuality, when you want to do things over and above compared to what other schools are doing, it takes a lot. Each year, I have a great booster program, great parents who want to help, and the alumni base is awesome. They always want to chip in to keep Malvern on track and at its highest point, so that part’s nice.”

High-level programs, like Bonner-Prendie and Downingtown West, can’t schedule outside of the area competition or as many compared to other programs because they already have an agreement made with area teams.

The Whippets compete in the National Division of the Chest-Mont League and have a two-year agreement with the Pioneer Athletic Conference, which includes Spring-Ford and Perkiomen Valley.

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The Friars, who play in the Red Division of the PCL — although they are considered a smaller school — have matchups against the PCL’s Blue Division teams, including Archbishop Wood and Ryan, since they compete in Class 4A.

Do they feel at a disadvantage?

“No, I think at the end of the day, we love it,” said Bonner coach Jack Muldoon, whose team will face Simon Gratz on Saturday. “I’m not complaining — iron sharpens iron. I think by the time we had gotten into the playoffs last year, we had just come through playing Father Judge, Roman, La Salle, and Prep. Roman went to the state championship — lost in a heartbreaker. La Salle won the Catholic League [Red Division], and Prep won the state championship. By the time we got into the state playoffs, there wasn’t anybody that we were going to look at and say, ‘Wow, that team looks like a daunting task,’ because we had played the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the state just prior to that.

“At the end of the day, even though they are huge challenges and it’s tough for us to kind of compare what we have to a Prep and La Salle, we’re still going to go out there and do everything we can to take on that challenge.”

Kline added: “Between Coatesville, Downingtown East, Bishop Shanahan, and ourselves, all those teams make the playoffs every year. Shanahan is probably the favorite; if not, they should be probably the favorite to win the 4A district title, and Downingtown East and Coatesville are outstanding programs. Our schedule is challenging enough in [the National Division].”

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These programs want to grow, and scheduling games outside of the area may come with its challenges, but coaches believe it helps them evaluate their team while exposing them to new opportunities.

It also continues to show that Eastern Pennsylvania football is just getting better.

“More and more teams are looking to get out and play great competition,” Roken said. “It shows your kids and their families that you’re looking to raise the bar and raise the standard and go compete against some of the best out there.”