It's been 22 years.

It's been that long since Butler has put together a winning varsity football season.

The Golden Tornado are on their sixth head coach since Mark Farabee guided Butler to a 6-4 record in 1997.

The 1998 and 2012 teams made the WPIAL playoffs, but with 4-5 records. And Butler has won nine total games in the six seasons since that last playoff appearance.

Failure to win has cost the program numbers — big-time.

Butler is beginning this season with a roster of 44 players. A handful of them are injured and unavailable. Another 19 of those players are sophomores.

Seneca Valley has 33 players in its junior class alone. Slippery Rock High School has 55 players.

The Raiders have 75 players on their roster overall, almost twice as many as the Tornado.

When you're playing in Class 6A, those are the types of numbers you're up against. Pine-Richland and North Allegheny have huge numbers every year and contend for the WPIAL championship almost annually.

Central Catholic has a strong postseason history as well. And, of course, we can't forget Mt. Lebanon.

So what is the point of all this? Just to put gloom and doom down on paper?

Not at all.

It's to laud the 40-plus kids who came out for Butler football this season.

They don't care about the current winning tradition of many of the teams in their conference.

They don't care about the Tornado's recent struggles.

They don't care about the negativity permeating the hallways and the community about Butler football.

They care about learning the game, bonding as a team, listening to their coaches and trying to make things better.

It's easy to be excited about football when your team, has been to the playoffs and plays in front of a packed house at home games on Friday nights.

It's not so easy when your team didn't win a game the previous year and the stands are maybe a third full come opening kickoff at home.

At some point, Butler football will turn around. At some point, wins will start to come.

It will probably take a small roster of players — like this year's group — to begin that process. It will probably take a determined bunch of kids — like this group — to begin winning over the naysayers.

Butler has a good, young coaching staff. Many of them played football for the Tornado in past years. Those guys want that success to come more than anybody and they're putting in time to work at it.

Win or lose in 2019, kudos to the Butler football team, especially the seniors.

You guys didn't quit. You guys are still fighting to make a difference in the program.

Here's hoping you feel and savor the taste of victory.

You deserve it.