Submitted photo / Images by Mandy The 2024 East football team.

YOUNGSTOWN — Devlin Culliver is changing the culture around the football program at East.

Last season, Culliver took over a program that had fallen on hard times. The Golden Bears have had just one winning season in 17 years — 2018 when they went 7-4.

But the Youngstown native and Cardinal Mooney alum knew what he had to do when he arrived back in the Mahoning Valley last season. Culliver wanted to instill a positive attitude and a level of discipline amongst the players, while maintaining a level of consistency around everything.

Heading into year two, Culliver has begun to see those changes around the program taking shape.

“What’s new for us is our attitude,” Culliver said. “They don’t look at practice negatively anymore. Last year, if a drill was hard or whatever, they would look at it as the coaches trying to punish us, instead of looking at it as preparation for Friday night. Our approach is different now, they appreciate the hard work that they’re putting into practice.”

East went 3-7 in Culliver’s first season last year, but the Golden Bears have their sights set on a winning record this season and earning a postseason bid for the first time since 2018.

But in addition to their on-field goals, Culliver and East have goals that they are always striving for off the field, as well.

“We want to accomplish a few things — we want to get to the playoffs and try to win our conference,” Culliver said. “We got the kids that can do it, we just have to put it all together. We also want our kids to mature into young men because that’s the ultimate goal for them. For them to become better in school and better at home and be committed, that’s the main point for me.”

With the changes Culliver has implemented, comes a new identity. East wants to embody exactly what the Youngstown-area is known for — toughness and grit.

“Our personality is, we want to be known as a tough team,” Culliver said. “We want to be able to run to the ball on offense and defense, and not let anybody outplay us. When we play hard, we play well.”

East will open this season on the road at Columbus Whetstone, before back-to-back home games against Chagrin Falls and Cleveland John F. Kennedy at Rayen Stadium. The Golden Bears then open Steel Valley Conference play at Ursuline, before two more road games at Cleveland Shaw and Dohn Community School.

The back half of East’s schedule will prove to be a grind, as the Golden Bears end the regular season with home games against Howland and Struthers, in addition to road games with Cardinal Mooney and Chaney.

But this academic year will be East’s one of the last as members of the Steel Valley Conference. Both Youngstown City Schools, East and Chaney, are set to depart the conference with Cardinal Mooney and Ursuline joining the Ohio Catholic Athletic Conference in 2026.

“It’s pretty much all the way confirmed. We’re not sure where we’re going to go yet, but we’re definitely going some place together,” Culliver said. “We just gotta figure things out proximity-wise. We don’t want to go too far and have to travel too far away. So we’re just trying to figure out what’s the best option for us right now and where we can fit in.”

Culliver is hoping they can find a future conference home that is competitive and is on a similar level numbers-wise and skill-wise.

“We have about 50 kids this year, I would assume Chaney’s about 55-60 kids,” Culliver said. “Just being in a league where you have to go against schools with similar numbers of kids, similar communities, I think that’d be the best fit for us. We don’t want to go somewhere we’ll dominate, but you also don’t want to go to a league where we can’t compete either. You want to be somewhere in the middle. I want to be in a tough league, but a winnable league. I want to be in a league where in any year, any team can win, instead of the same two teams winning every year.”

When Culliver first arrived before the start of last year, the Golden Bears had battles at almost every position.

The team was young and inexperienced, and just because a player had played a certain position the previous year, didn’t necessarily guarantee them the same spot. Culliver wanted to figure the team’s depth chart out from scratch.

This season, however, East’s depth chart has more experience and stability, and Culliver has a more clear-cut picture of what both sides of the ball will look like heading into Week 1.

“It makes my job easier because I don’t have to do as much coaching as far as teaching them the game,” Culliver said of the team’s returning experience. “It’s sort of plug and play, and we can move on to the next phase of the game and it saves a lot of time for the coaching staff. We can just concentrate on football, and not on some of the other stuff we had to worry about last year, like effort and bad attitude and the want to work hard. We got rid of all that. We’re heading in the right direction.”

OFFENSE

East will have seven starters back on the offensive side of the ball this season.

After the graduation of Andrew Blackmon, Daryan Brownlee is set to step in to lead the Golden Bears’ offense.

“He was our backup last year, so he played in every game at quarterback,” Culliver said. “He didn’t start any, but I always made sure he played because I knew this year he would be our guy.”

Brownlee will have an experienced target to throw to with junior Tyris Davis, the team’s leading receiver last season with 37 receptions for 435 yards, returning.

“He’s one of the best receivers in the area, and maybe one of the best in the state,” Culliver said.

All-purpose weapon Breshean Buie is also back for his senior season. Buie finished 2023 with 300 rushing yards, to go with 12 receptions for 155 yards as the slot receiver. In the backfield, sophomore Dyonn Perry is expected to take over the starting tailback spot.

Lining up on the opposite side of the field from Davis and Buie is Craig Womack, who’ll be a big 6-foot-6 target for Brownlee to pass to.

“It was his first varsity experience last year,” Culliver said. “So this year, we expect him to take big leaps in games.”

The offensive line might be East’s most experienced unit heading into the 2024 season, with four of five starters back from last year, including tackle Charlie Harrison, center Derrick Hayes, tackle Jameir Blair and guard Mark Butler.

“We’re pretty solid on the line, which is always a weak point in high school,” Culliver said. “We should be able to run the ball better than we did last year. We’ll be able to throw off that. We had a pretty decent passing game, so we’ll build off of that.”

DEFENSE

Like the offense, the defense has a sizable returning contingent, with eight starters back.

At the heart of the defense is Perry, who had a breakout season last year as a freshman linebacker. He finished with 95 tackles and three sacks.

“He’ll be the mainstay in the middle for us,” Culliver said. “He’ll make all our calls as a sophomore, so we expect big things out of him.”

Joining Perry in the second level are junior Keylin Warren and Christian Lacy. Warren tallied 67 tackles and seven sacks a year ago.

Up front, Butler will be a two-way player and line up at defensive tackle, where he’ll be joined by Trent Madison. Also, Marcus Murphy is expected to line up at defensive end for the Golden Bears.

“Up front we’ll be pretty tough,” Culliver said. “Our box should be solid.”

In the secondary, Buie and Davis will also be two-way guys at cornerback, where they’ll be joined by Allen Garner at defensive back.

SPECIAL TEAMS

East will spend time during its final scrimmages and days of practice figuring out how the specialist positions on special teams will shake out.

The Golden Bears kickoff the 2024 season at Columbus Whetstone on Saturday, Aug. 24.

Have an interesting story? Contact Neel Madhavan by email at nmadhavan@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @NeelMadhavan.