CANONSBURG — Zach Slomers knows capturing the interest of the student body needs to be at the forefront of the Butler football program's priority list.

The Golden Tornado senior wide receiver didn't join the team until his junior year. He wants younger kids to not give up on Butler so easily.

How to best spur interest will be hotly debated in the months following the Golden Tornado's 35-7 season-ending Quad County Conference road loss to Canon-McMillan Friday night.

The Golden Tornado (0-10, 0-8) have lost 20 straight games and lost its 10 games this season by an average margin of 37.3 points per game. This trend — along with being regularly forced to dress fewer than 30 players — has the Golden Tornado pondering a move from the hyper-competitive WPIAL to an independent football schedule.

“Personally, yeah,” Slomers said about having an independent schedule. “I feel like we should. Just to get people involved. Right now, no one wants to play because they are going to go against these 6A teams who are going to smack their mouths every game and no one is going to play. The numbers dropped drastically from last year to this year.”

Butler last made the playoffs in 2012 and haven't had a winning season since 1997. The Golden Tornado want to revive a proud tradition that sent seven players to the NFL and won a share of the 1977 WPIAL crown.

Butler coach Eric Christy is OK with whatever direction people think is best for the program. He feels the Golden Tornado competed well in a few games.

“For me, it would be nice with whatever works out,” Christy said. “I'm sure we'll work on something with the whole district from the superintendent on down to get things to work.”

Against the Big Macs, Butler couldn't capitalize on strong early defense. Canon-McMillan (3-7, 3-5) went three-and-out and fumbled the ball away to the Golden Tornado on its first two possessions.

Butler, which had 83 yards of total offense, wasn't able to score either time and didn't record a first down until Canon-McMillan was hit with a personal foul on a face mask with 3 minutes, 58 seconds left in the first half.

“We didn't want them to out-leverage us,” Big Macs coach Mike Evans said. “They do motion, they do some jet stuff and the quarterback runs the ball a lot. We were working on alignments all week long.

“We were trying to make sure with their motions they weren't out-leveraging us so we could keep everything inside.”

The Big Macs — who were led by first-time starting quarterback Lamont Lyons Jr. — relied on a strong rushing attack to bury Butler. Ryan Angott, who had a game-high 135 yards and scored twice, capped a seven-play, 62-yard drive with a 4-yard touchdown run with 11:29 left in the half.

After sputtering on their first two drives, the Big Macs closed the half with four scoring drives to take a 28-0 halftime lead. All four of Canon-Millan's drives ended with rushing touchdowns. Angott scored on runs of 18 and 4 yards, Lyons scored from 7 yards out and Blake Joseph had a 25-yard score.

“They have great line play,” Christy said. “We had trouble picking up stunts and blitzes early on. I'm not sure what was going on with that. We didn't have the greatest week of practice. It's hard when you have the season that you are, getting the guys focused.”

Caleb Racher caught a 70-yard touchdown on the first play of the second half to extend the lead to 35-0.

Slomers scored Butler's lone touchdown on a 1-yard run with 2:14 remaining.

While the Golden Tornado weren't able to capture a win, Slomers hopes to see the program build the numbers back up.

“We need all the younger kids to get everyone involved,” said Slomers, who led Butler with 35 rushing yards. “We need to get the younger kids to play through freshman, eighth and seventh grade. I didn't stick with it until last year. We need people to stick all the way through.”

Butler 0 0 0 7 — 7

Canon-Mac 0 28 7 0 — 35

Second Quarter

C-M — Ryan Angott 4 run (Benjamin Popko kick), 11:29

C-M — Lamont Lyons Jr. 7 run (Popko kick), 7:07

C-M — Blake Joseph 25 run (Popko kick), 4:13

C-M — Angott 18 run (Popko kick), :43

Third Quarter

C-M — Caleb Rancher 70 pass from Lyons Jr. (Popko kick), 11:29

Fourth Quarter

B — Zach Slomers 1 run (Emery Douthett kick), 2:14

Individual Statistics

Rushing: Butler, Zach Slomers 5-35, Justin Kabay 5-17, Cooper Baxter 15-13, Anthony Daviduk 1-2. Canon-McMillan, Ryan Angott 17-135, Blake Joseph 5-58, Anthony Finney 3-35, Isaiah Chandler 6-13, Lamont Lyons Jr. 1-7, Xander Rossi 1-0, TEAM 1-(-14).

Passing:Butler, Cooper Baxter 4-14-26-0. Canon-McMillan, Lamont Lyons Jr. 4-6-144-0.

Receiving:Butler, Charles Kreinbucher 1-12, Justin Kabay 2-12, Zach Slomers 2-(-5). Canon-McMillan, Caleb Rancher 1-70, Connor McMahon 2-42, Blake Joseoh 1-32.