As the New York and Pennsylvania squads take the field Saturday, the coaching staffs will line the sidelines, with players and coaches alike hoping to take home a victory. In the end, however, only one team gets to claim the honor of winning in 2025.

Will experience on the sidelines factor in for this year’s matchup? We will know the answer at the final horn. However, experience definitely tips in NY’s favor this year as far as the coaching staff goes.

“This is my third time coaching in the Big 30 game, first as an assistant coach in 2009 and then as a head coach in 2018,” NY coach Chad Bartoszek said. In addition to Bartoszek, Paul Furlong, who is working with the offensive line and as special teams coordinator, will be making his fourth appearance at the Big 30. Previous coaching stints were in 2008, ‘09 and 2013. Meanwhile, defensive coordinator Aaron Hill was on the sidelines in 2018 and is back for the 2025 game.

On the NY side, first-time coaches are Jerry Parisi (defense), Seth Hostuttler (Defense) and Greg Herrick (offense).

For the PA side, Troy Cook is in the head coach position for the first time. However, he has been on the sidelines for a previous Big 30 game.

“I first coached in the Big 30 game 11 or so years ago. I was an assistant to Virgil Graham. We fell short in the game, but it was a great experience,” Cook said. “We fell behind early and then the game was postponed because of the weather. We all came back on Sunday and we made a great comeback, but ran out of time. We dug ourselves too big of a hole early (on). I was joined on that staff by Boyd Fitzsimmons, who is also joining me on this years’ staff.”

Additional PA coaches include Shawn Rounsville, Chris Schwab, Cam Magee and Josh Rounsville.

One of the biggest challenges for the Big 30 is bringing together so many talented players from different schools and finding the best way to mesh that talent into a successful product. Both coaches recognize that challenge and have been keeping that top of mind during practice.

“From past experience I learned that probably the most important thing is to have the team come together as soon as possible,” Cook explained. “When you are drawing players from several different teams, it’s always interesting to see how they will gel. This group has been great at that.”

Bartoszek agreed, noting “The most important part of coaching in the Big 30 game is to give the players an opportunity to have fun, make some memories and give them a chance to compete at a high level one more time. The role we all play in this event impacts the entire Big 30 area in a positive way and the importance of that is a driving force for the coaching staff to put in the extra time throughout the summer. Schematically, I learned from 2018 that you are not going to be able to teach your entire offense in eight practices and to focus on simplicity and execution.”

For Cook, recognizing that a lot of work must be completed in a short amount of time meant adjustments and refining strategy.

“We have a small amount of time to prepare, so we have condensed our schemes a bit to accommodate,” he said. “We also have some different types of personnel so we quickly had to learn what the players do well and adjust our schemes to fit them.”

With the amount of players available, Bartoszek noted that optimizing time on the field was a new problem to address.

“It seems very simple, but practice planning is very different as you have two full teams of players. As a small school coach, we are used to running sessions with offense and defense using the same athletes which takes twice the time,” Bartoszek said. “It took a few practices to get into a good groove to maximize our time with each position group and we had very efficient practices. Also, we spend a ton of time at Salamanca focusing on skill development and technique and although we still hit on these aspects during the last two weeks we are working with very skilled football players who have a grasp on most of it already.”

As for what they are looking forward to for Saturday, Bartoszek set the tone, noting “the focus will be on the players and their experiences. Our staff has put a lot of time into installing a game plan that we feel will highlight the team and give us an opportunity for success.

“As with every game, I am excited to compete and get the juices flowing again but most of the fun and excitement will come from seeing our players have success on the field.”