Staff photo / Preston Byers Jackson-Milton head football coach Brian Shaner watches his offense run a play during practice Wednesday in North Jackson.

NORTH JACKSON — Brian Shaner is no stranger to the Joe Lane Sports Complex.

As the head football coach of Mineral Ridge for six years, Shaner oversaw significant improvements in Weathersfield, whether it was the Rams’ on-field performance or the Rams’ actual field.

During Shaner’s tenure, Mineral Ridge made upgrades to its football stadium, including installing artificial turf, and made strides as a football program, which barely had enough players to field a team by the end of 2018 and had not been to the playoffs in more than a decade before his arrival.

In 2022 and 2023, Shaner led the Rams to consecutive postseason appearances and eight-win seasons, which Ridge had not accomplished in 18 years, and in 2023, his team earned two upset playoff wins to qualify for the third round for the first time.

Tonight, though, when he enters the stadium, he will do so as a familiar visitor, having taken the position of head coach at Jackson-Milton in January, less than two months after his departure from Mineral Ridge in November.

“It’s a great facility. I don’t know how many small schools have a facility like Ridge. It’s a great football team. It’s a great challenge for us. It’s the opening of the league,” Shaner said of his return. “Honestly, they just wear a different jersey than us. It’s small-school football, and we’re going to play. Don’t matter who it is.

“I’ll look forward to seeing some of the kids at the end of the game, but again, it’s a football game. You get ready like it’s every other game, and if you do it any other way, I just believe that’s wrong. I haven’t even mentioned that we’re going to a school that I used to be at. It’s about Jackson-Milton football and us getting better and going to try to play a full football game.”

Shaner said in his long career, he has only coached against a former team once.

In 2012, after Shaner left his post as East’s head coach to lead the Niles football program, Shaner’s new and old teams met in the regular-season finale.

“It was a different feeling,” Shaner said of the game, which Niles won 22-14. “I knew those kids across the sideline, and you do have mixed feelings. But again, your job at hand is your football team, your kids, and I gotta make sure my guys are ready to go and to block out all the noise that’s gonna go on on the road and just take care of us.”

Tonight, not only will the opposing players be very familiar, but so will the opposing coach.

Following Shaner’s departure, Mineral Ridge hired Valley Christian head coach and former Rams wide receiver Andy Hake, who served as an assistant for Shaner at Rayen and East, and for whom Shaner assisted at Western Reserve before taking the Ridge job in 2018.

With more than 70 players, Hake’s Rams possess one of the largest rosters in the area, regardless of division, a fact not lost on Shaner, whose Blue Jays team has about 30 players.

“They have large numbers, so they’re gonna have that advantage over us. They’re able to sub a lot more than we are. They’re gonna be very sound in what they do; they have a very deep belief system in what they do,” Shaner said. “We have to show up right to play for four quarters and play aggressive, be able to withstand their energy that they’re gonna come out with and just be tough, hard-nosed kids.”

Jackson-Milton enters tonight’s Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference game vs. Mineral Ridge (2-1) undefeated, with wins over Mathews, Newton Falls and Windham. Last week’s 47-0 shutout of the Bombers gave Jackson-Milton more wins through three weeks in 2025 than in the entire 2024 season, when the Blue Jays won their first two games before dropping their final eight.

However, it might be hard to tell from Shaner’s view of the first three weeks.

“I hate using the phrase ‘roller coaster,’ but it really has. It’s been up and down,” Shaner said. “Sometimes, we look like world-beaters; sometimes, we look like we haven’t coached them a day out here on the field. We’re looking for consistency, that’s definitely something we’re trying to achieve each and every day. But like I said, there’s been times we’ve looked really good as a football team, and there are times when we just get lackadaisical and we have mental breakdowns.”

“I don’t even think they realize we’ve had success. We keep our thumb on them, we keep them grounded. It’s a long season; there are gonna be highs, there are gonna be lows, and we don’t want any of that. We wanna stay even-keeled. I think if you’d ask our guys, they’d say the same thing. We haven’t achieved the main goal that we’re striving to achieve. They stay grounded, and they show up. We don’t have a feeling of being 3-0 – we have a feeling we need to get better.”