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Night Drive Podcast, Illinois Valley Edition. I'm the cal Daily Chronicle Sports Editor
Eddy Carriffio. I am with Shaw Regional editor, sports regional sports editor.
I'll get it out sooner or later. Now, I got to say your
last name right, JT penalty. As long as I get your name right,
that's what matters. That's what I care. Man. There's a lot
of regions and I kind of hope people and a lot of them. So
that's as long as as long as you hit the Shaw part and the last
name, kind of people will know who you're talking about. Yeah, So
excellent job. We're rolling. That's what matters. Let's just keep this momentum
going because I want to talk some sickamore Ardoa this week. It's uh,
someone up my way, someone down your way. No one wasn't the closest
match up here over the last you know, I don't know long long time,
but JT. Let's just say, what does an upset for Ottawa like,
what has to have like to be the upset of all upsets for Ottawa
to knockout Sickamore. It's not gonna look like to you. Uh well,
you know you're talking about two teams that were coming off the playoffs last year,
so you know it's not a Now there's different levels of making the playoffs.
Obviously there's your five and four and oh my gosh, Week ten's coming
and there's your five. There's your you know, Sickamore go eating one last
year. None to know they did go night. Yeah, they they want
because they beat Morris. So yeah, they beat Morris. Yeah, so
there's two. There's two different types of playoff teams and we all know that.
But uh, you know, I wouldn't be It would obviously be very
surprising. But ott was a good team. They have strong line play.
The corner back Kobe Mortenson's really kind of blossomed into kind of from Ottawa's head,
kind of a string of strong armed, kind of pocket passers, and
he's kind of more of a dual threat guy. And he's thrown for four
hundred and eight yards and five touchdowns and he's ran for four more touchdowns,
So obviously he has to have a really good game, make good decisions,
you know, the biggest and Ottawa has nice line play on both sides.
So you know, if they can win that battle or hold their own up
front and get a special performance from Kobe Mortenson, I you know they could
hang in there. Is it would it be an upset? Yes, you
are right, it would be. But you know, stranger things have happened,
right have they though that would be up there, that would be definitely
charts I mean, but yeah, it's like like you said, Ottawa playoff
team last year though, and looking like after a big win last week against
the Harvard looking like maybe a playoff team this year too. Yeah, they
could. You know, we've mentioned this before and I think we'll circle back
around to it. You know, a lot of Ottawa's and lasal Pruce playoff
hopes are just tied into who wins that game against each other, assuming everything
else goes chalk. But you know, you got to play the games to
see if if it goes there and if that is what it comes down to,
then you know, one of them might be looking at five and four,
the other might be looking their way. But you know, when you
when you talk about Sycamore and just kind of not just the program they've built,
but you know, what they've done this season just looks just incredibly impressive.
Kind of what have you seen from them? I mean, what is
you know, speaking from my LaSalle County perspective, you know what is it
that Ottawa's going to have to stop them from doing? That? They do
so well, they'll they'll do the other thing That's what makes dangerous is they
you're keying on that run, and even stopping the run is the task in
and of itself, because you know they'll run a variant of the wing tea
and you don't know they have three or four different guys that can carry the
ball, that might get a ball in a particular carry. Yeah, there's
definitely tendencies and keys you can figure out with them, but you still gotta
go ahead and stop them. And with that line they have, it's difficult.
And I haven't gotten into the passing game yet. That seems to have
gotten clicking a little bit for the first time this year really to a degree
against Woodstock last week when you saw Burke Oucher and Carter York pult receivers last
year. Caucher's quarterback. This year, they rekindled that connection they had on
the freshman team when Goucher was backlane quarterback. I had a couple of touchdowns
to each other, so or Coucher York obviously, So it's and that surpassing
game. So go ahead and pick one. Yeah, exactly, And yeah,
it's a definitely a tall order frattle. The one thing you know that
you can sit there and look at it is okay out it was two and
one, you know where they're sitting. Yeah, you have sickamore in Canland
these next two weeks. You know, it's not hard to picture that they
might be two and three. You know. But then you got Woodstock North,
which is a team OUTA was done well against, even though Woodstock North
just played LP pretty tough, which would be a great transition if we were
ready to get there. But you know, and then you got that LP
game, you know, so so you know, OTAs ottawas in a position
where you know they don't have to pull off an upset to be a playoff
team there. You know, I'm sure they want to go out and play
well and give themselves a chance in that second half too. Hey wait a
minute, maybe the ball bounces this way, you know, maybe this happens,
maybe someone slips. You know, if you can put yourself in a
position, that's how upsets happened. It's just by playing hard and keeping yourself
within striking range. And one very important thing actually we haven't brought up yet.
It's kind of big dimensioned offensively for Ottawa. It's twenty points off of
Sycamore last year. And this was a team that the Sycamore team that allowed
fifty five points the entirety of the year. So Ottawa did find I mean
huge success if you're going in on a relative scale there based on what Sigamore
done when they scored the almost points Sigamore gave up all year. So they
had some offensive success against them last year in the past, so you know,
put some points up to see what happens. Absolutely, you know,
and kind of you know, we talked about that Ottawa LP game kind of
looming in a few weeks in Week seven, because that could break a break
playoff hopes. You know LP beat would Stock North and it was you know,
I'm used to Eddie and I'm sure you've kind of seen this too.
The the this Kishwaukee River Interstate eight on this large side, blue side white
was at white side white blue. I think of it as large and small
because that's what it really is. Yes, yeah, and on this large
side, the Interstate eight's pretty well dominated things since this conference affiliations come together
and would stock North played LP tough. They led him at halftime eighteen fourteen,
which is kind of a prize. LP got a big squib kick returned
down to the two yard line from Caleb Kennedy and that kind of opened the
doors for LP to pull away for a thirty five twenty five win. But
you know, LP like Ottawa two and one, Like Ottawa has those sycamores
and those Knelands kind of looming out there on the schedule, Morris, and
so you look at these games you know that they have coming up here,
coming up now, you know these are the games you gotta get because you
know those other ones like ottawas this week is going to be really tough.
So so it'll be interesting. LP host Plane, which is two and one
and beat Ottawa, So that's gonna be a big game for LP's playoff hopes
kind of kind of moving forward, and I guess I guess I would ask,
you know, as LP goes. You know, they've traditionally been you
know, maybe a notch above Ottawa here in recent years they have a nice
run of wins in that arch rivalry game. But kind of you know,
you'd like to think if LP, if you're LP, you want to you
want to be kind of at that Kane level. That's that's kind of where
you want to get to where we maybe you're not a favorite, but you
know you could give Morris trouble, you could give Sickamore trouble. And I
think that's what that team LP wants to be this year. But uh,
you know, it's it's it's a little bit of a climb to get to
where Canlan was because they did such a good job against Morris this past week.
Yeah, and ironically Canlan wants to be, you know, from where
they are storied like this is like kind of quote in big old quotes with
lights flashing above them, quote a down you know, yea from what they
had in the past, from when they were just you know State Titlist contenders
every year and that, so it's just ironical these maybe ironic strong word atlantis.
Morrisett broke the meaning of that word in my brain. But it's just
weird how that word can mean many things that a lot of depending on the
circumstance. So yeah, I know, Canland definitely had a great game against
Morris kept a close second year in a row, obviously fall by ten.
You look at what they are able to do offensively. I mean, that's
no secret. Troyer Carlson is just a great, great quarterback. Trying to
remember if he committed somewhere. Yeah, I'm almost positive he did, but
I can't think if he did or didn't. You have Eric Johnson is just
a great receiver. You have Tony and Don de Blasio also solid talk targets,
all seniors I have. It's a very senior leading team. Josh Malthy
is occasionally running the ball, but they like him as a defensive end so
much they try to play him there and keep him fresh, although he's a
very good option at running back in that makes sense. I know, he
had a couple of touchdowns or yeah, yeah, two touchdowns, a couple
of weeks ago at running back, so it's you know, tempting to put
him in there and get those scores. But no, no, no,
Caitlin. I mean coaches players don't want to talk about moral victories. And
that's probably an overused cliche term anyway, but it's like, you know,
you look at the loss and saying, Okay, well we know what we
did, and we know how we can bounce back from this, and we
know how we can improve to give a tougher just to do even better against
teams of that level. And I think that that absolutely what Klin takes out
of that. Yeah, and you flip it on the other side for Morris,
just kind of more of the same. You know, they beat a
tough opponent. They've they've been doing that this year. You know, they
get a ten point win. They know hard thought, but you get the
W. They're three and ozero, they should be all right. In week
four they visit Woodstock North, So I think four and oh is not an
unreasonable leap to make that Morris would be there and then they have three straight
home games. You know, we talked about LP trying to break into that
level. The host LP, the host Richmond Burton and then they host Woodstock,
So you know, depending on how games go. I know, I
think Morris should you know, hold course, with that big Sycamore game in
week nine, that kind of everyone has their eyes on. Yeah, no
one to overlooked that. Richmond Burton one, I kind of we've been talking
about and I out that that's not one to overlook at them. And obviously
with what Richmond Burton has done here the last couple of years, I know
we're treading into other people's territories right now, but you know that that's gonna
be hecky again. Man Richard, Richard Burtman Richard, I think he was
math teacher. Richmond Burton had a big win over Sycamore. I think it
was the first year of the combined leagues. They had a big win down
here. They've been rolling through opponents this year. Marian was only a twelve
point win. But it's a private school and a good so that's that whole
thing. Beat Notre Dame, beat Marengo, the roll past Maringo. So
they they're close to what they've been in the past, or are what they've
been in the pastle that you know, we can talk because I know are
regional bias would skew toward that Sigamore Morris game last week of the year,
But that Richmond Burton Morris game is going to be a pretty good one too.
It could be a good when games like that only make you better.
And uh, you know, I was just because we're talking about not to
look past, you know, anything between now and then, but because we're
talking about that more a Sickamore game. Kind of the teams that used to
be in the Interstate Eight, in the Illinois Central Eight kind of they have
their own, you know, big game looming that week seven. Wilmington Coal
City. I spent last Friday night at Coal City in Colder Country, where
quite the pregame fireworks show, by the way, last time I was there,
it was only like a few Roman candles or something. They've they've upped
their game on the fireworks. But Cole City took care of Street or fifty
five to six Street, or actually held in there pretty well early until the
star quarterback Christian Benning went down with a shoulder injury. I spoke to their
head coach, Kyle Tutt, quite a high school quarterback himself, talked to
him and he said that Christians kind of day to day as far as you
know, shoulder ligament separation type injuries go, It's probably about as good as
it can be, you know, in terms of grade and still be injured.
So so hopeful that he kind of comes out of that and can play
sooner rather than later. But you know, really cool City was why I
bring it up. You know, Cold City just looked amazing. Landon Benson.
If it was a road game, he would have drove the bus home.
He ran for one hundred and fifty four and three touchdowns. He threw
a sixty yard touchdown pass on like a halfback option, which I talked to
him after the game. He said, couldn't even see the receiver over the
people rushing at him, so he just threw it and knew he'd be there,
trusted him to be there. Not a not a big guy, not
a big guy. But he also he also kicked seven pats, So you
know, Landon Benson get kid to keep an eye on. Definitely with Colson
Cole City team to keep an eye on as they moved towards that inevitable probably
conference championship show down in Week seven with Wilmington. Yeah, we talked about
them needing a bounce back after Week one. We'll get into another team coming
up here. We're gonna take a little break. We're gonna to another team
that we knew was going to have a bounce back. They needed it,
we knew they were gonna get it, and hey, they got the bounce
back. We'll talk about that team here in a seconds right after these messages.
This is State Representative Steve Reich, and I'm happy to sponsor this year's
Friday Night Drive. There'll be plenty of time for politics down the road,
but for now, let's enjoy some high school football. Whichever school you follow,
give them your support. Welcome back to the Friday Night Drive podcast,
Illinois Valley Edition. JT. Penalty here with Eddie Cariffio. And you know,
Eddie, you let us in before the break into a team needing a
win, coming off a surprising loss, and needing a good performance and getting
it. And I'm going to take a wild stab and say, you're talking
about the Princeton Tigers. Oh, that's even better than what I was gonna
say. Oh, yes, I was talking about Princeton. Yeah, yeah,
Princeton, you know, coming coming off a kind of upset. UH
lost last week where they lost their number one ranking in Class three A.
You and I you know, sat here last week in this very virtual space
and said that they would bounce back, they'd be just fine. And you
know they beat uh Sterling Newland Central Catholic twenty to nothing. What a defensive
showing against a you know, a Newman team that you know is gonna just
bludging you up front. But you know, Casey ath Ridge rushed for one
hundred and seventy yards and two touchdowns of League Princeton, And you know,
Newman's defense should not be lost. How well Newman's defense played in this game.
I believe they forced three fumbles that they recover forced four and recovered three
of them defensively. And you know just played played a fantastic game, held
Princeton at twenty points, but you can't win with zero, right, Yeah,
it looks like definitely, Uh the Newman defensive performance probably shouldn't be at
norton this one. I mean again, uh, no moral victories, but
that's something you build off of. That's something you look at like like literally
not even like momentum wise in that raw row stuff, but literally you look
at what you did, and you're able to you know, see what was
successful against the good offensive team and build forward when you're playing teams that are
at that level or not at that level. So yeah, absolutely, and
well go ahead, I'm just gonna say, and that's obviously big for a
newing team that you know, like Forrinceton is probably going to be there past
week ten. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know the other thing with
you know, with Princeton, they visit Orion, can you say that one?
Uh? Yeah, they visited two in one Orient team this week,
and then they host Sterling, which is, uh, you know, I'm
very interested to see having followed you know, Sterling back in the old nc
C days NIB twelve you pick the conference, but having followed Sterling for so
long and knowing the program they have, you know, Princeton against them,
that should be a really good Princeton or Sterling's one and two, but you
know, they play a high level of competition. And then Kawami's undefeated and
they're coming up on Princeton schedule. So you know, if Princeton did right
the ship, which is what we think happened, then I would say it
was a good time for it. Because they got a tough stretch coming here.
Yeah, well, well we'll see if this hypothesis is proved, but
yeah, they they've probably righted the ship. It was, you know,
like we said at the time, just unfortunate set of circumstances from their perspective
that led to a the upset. So yeah, and kind of the other
that kind of naturally leads me to Saint Pete on Saturday, got well after
a loss with the fifty four nothing when over walf of Christian and you know,
at the Saint Bee and now was sitting at two and one, and
you know, kind of that Chicago Land Prairie is. I like the way
they set up their schedule. I don't know if we've talked about this in
our two previous editions, but the way they set up the schedule. I
don't know if this was planned or if they just you know, through sand
and let it scatter this way, but they basically the way they built the
schedule for this first year of the Chicago Land Areas, all of the more
northern slash suburban whatnot teams all are kind of playing each other at the in
the last three weeks of the year, and all the teams down here,
Saint be Dwight, Marquette, Seneca are all playing each other in weeks seven
through nine, So it really is going to be a you know, you're
gonna have this whole midsection of this season where Saint Bede's playing the Waalfare Christian
and Seneca which also three and it took a forfeit from westmontin and it's kind
of like, why are these teams playing each other? Although Seneca and Westmont
who have a bit of a conference history together, but but boy, it's
gonna be fun week seventh through nine. You know, right now, it's
kind of like what is with this conference? You know, why are these
teams playing each other? But week seventh through nine, it's gonna be a
lot of fun when all these rivalry games start piling up and you have,
you know, Dwight, Seneca, Marquette, Saint Bede in week eight is
just going to be an absolute mad house. They haven't played since they were
members of the old Big Rivers Conference, So so I like the way they
set up that schedule. They really set it up in a way that the
way Major League Baseball used to until they went to this new schedule where you
know, you knew the Cubs and Cardinals if they were were going to be
playing each other at the end of you know, that last series of the
season and probably going to decide the division championship. Well that's optimistic as a
Cubs fan. But but I love the way this is set up. I
hope it's intentional. I hope it's something they continue. Yeah, I'm just
surprised Walter Christian is not eat man yet. Yeah. Yeah, and you
feel like that day could be coming, but they just found a conference.
So yeah, that's unfortunate part of that. Yeah, but you know,
let's say what you will. I mean, Westmont forfeited with Seneca coming up
due to low numbers, and you know you'd have to be deluding yourself if
you didn't say how good Seneca is. Doesn't isn't a factor in that equation.
So you know, Walter Christian, you know, they showed up and
played, so you know, give them that. Absolutely. So we've exhausted
down there, right, I have nothing else to talk to you about.
I will sit here and listen. Oh well, I'm gonna Suoz for a
while too. Let's just can we get some music? No, I'm being
told no, okay, Well, I want to talk to me and see
I've been talking a big northern a lot. And I think there's a game
on the radar this week that's gonna show just how weird this conference potentially is,
and that's g K is playing Dixon. Janoah Kingston is out at Dixon
this week. Dixon is still one of the two undefeated teams with Byron,
and I do want to say it to start that I think all the weirdness
in the conference is from spot two on death. I think Byron Byron is
well, if we go to state championship week with this podcast, that Byron
will still be there with us, although I don't think we're going that long.
But well, yeah, I mean Byron's put up seventy seven points,
sixty four points, and seventy points, so there, yeah, they're okay,
yeah, so they are excluded from this, uh this theory of like
I said, just trying to find out how how weird stuff is, and
stuff could get very very wacky here. Should Janoah Kingston win. Janoa Kingston
needed over time to beat Oregon last week, a thriller in Genoa. Dixon
also actually had a close one against Oregon in Week two. Yeah, yeah,
so this could be very interesting here, and SINGI can't get to win.
I mean that that's gonna leave just Byron is the undefeated team that's gonna
open up the floodgates of teams that could potentially, you know, get not
only take a second in the conference, which I know is like you know,
I don't know if that actually means anything, but more importantly, they
don't make banners for that in the gym. Well, I mean, oh,
who was the what's was that? It was like an NBA team that
that opened up, like like conference semifinalists or put up a banner for that
or something. The NBA team a couple of years ago, like just pre
pandemic. I think to say, I can't remember, but I don't think
they're making those h for a high school football Yeah, but yeah, I
it'll be I think a great game. You know Dixon's played other than they're
forty nothing blanking rock falls this past week, you know, Dixon's all they
played his close games. You know, they beat Stillman Valley by fourteen,
they beat Oregon by nine, and uh, like you said, Janoah Kingston
just came off of an overtime win over Oregon where they won by six.
So you know, on paper, this looks like a really good game,
really good matchup, and you know, you got to play it on the
field, but on paper, it looks like, like you said, this
would be a really good measuring stick of just where these two teams stand in
the pecking order. Yeah. I think it's also big for Janoah to put
in the perspective that loss they had week two against North Boon, that thirty
five six loss were just absolutely nothing went right. You know, North Boon
by the way a win for Dixon. So there's that. But again,
it puts for it puts it in perspective for Janoa if they you know,
okay, was that just flukey or something else happening? So yeah, and
then you sit there, Yeah, and you sit there and you look at
that. Now you think, wonder of that that North Boon Dixon game that's
coming up in week nine, how's that going to say? You know,
what what will that game possibly mean for both of those teams in terms of
playoff hopes, in terms of maybe wanting a home game. You know,
because like you said, we all know Byron's on the schedule. So we
have a field and we know how that one's going to go. And Byron
has North Booon this week. So so you know, now you're thinking,
okay, can we get a home playoff game? You know, how can
we do that? So for Dixon and Genoa Kingston, I mean they're sitting
there going into this matchup and they have to think, think like, you
know this this game this Friday could be the difference between you know, being
at home or or going away to a really good team in Week ten.
I think the interesting battle there is Dixon. Dixon has the ability to throw
the ball. Surprising number of teams in the BNC do. Everyone in the
BNC is either like a spread or a wing teeth. I think Dixon is
actually one of the more balanced. I wish there wasn't a scheduling conflict,
or we could have a Dan whatso out here and he could tell you for
sure, the man knows everything about it. We could be good. Have
also had a lot more on Newman too. The man knows everything about any
of the sac Valley teams. But you're stuck with JT and me, And
I know Tyler Shanner is a good quarterbast blast with us. They're blessed with
us. Yeah, and you know, and GK can ballhawk. I mean
they can absolutely get after some interceptions that Nolan Klein just had a big game
last week, six tackles an interception, and I think this is going to
be after the ceremony, so we could say it Friday Night Drive MVP.
He won himself the belt. We don't get a lot of no, and
you'd love to see it from some of these schools that maybe drift a little
further away from the city, a little lower in enrollment, you know,
not not taking it away when other people win it at all. But I
know a couple of years ago, we had a Princeton athlete win. It
was a Saint Princeton or Saint Bede, and I got to go up to
your neck of the woods at the now closed Tom and Jerry's and I met
our colleague Joe Stevenson and got a belt to deliver back to LaSalle County to
Kevin Clum to hand out. So by the way val to become a late
night cow zone place, is that right, I'm a yeah, no,
I it seems very specific and obviously college town oriented, but yeah, there's
still there's still the Tom and Jerry's in Sycamore, right, So if I
need my Euro fix, I can just go off, absolutely go up a
little further on Rock twenty three. Okay, And there's literally within within how
Tyler Shanner can throw a football or any of the quarterbacks we mentioned like three
pizza places. If you count the caw Zone Place as a pizza place,
there's like three of them, like all in a row. So that's for
whatever that's worse. I don't know, well, I mean, first I
lost if there weren't that other time in Jerry's, I might boycott the kel
because I I mean I lost my white castle there. That was my closest
white castle. And then and then now now time someone who's missing the white
Castle and you're the guy, am I the one? You? Me?
Yeah, me and my but me and my buddies Harold and Kumar used to
go there and cap off a good night. But you know, you know,
but you talk about the Big Norton. That kind of leads me to
something which is more just the general state of football. And this is something
probably you and I care about, and maybe some parents who are wondering where
they're kids are at all even o'clock at night. You know, we worry
more about it because of our deadline. But you know, you get to
these conferences that we're three yards and a cloud of dust conferences and they're throwing
the ball all over the field. You know, games are going so late.
You know, I would love to start a petition just to eliminate prelimb
games on Friday nights entirely, have a firm seven o'clock, start, six
thirty, start something like that. Get I'm going to sit here and take
back the moral high ground. Let's get these kids home by ten to ten
thirty. But honestly, it's all about me not having to write a story
in the cold city parking lot in fifteen minutes in order to deadline and get
something in the Saturday editions. It can be two things. And I will
sign that petition with as many fake names as you need to get at the
pass or do something. I mean, I know the early game is a
tradition obviously anywhere, but I mean so was the wing tea, and that's
not a fig anymore. Mostly BNC aside. Obviously Sycamore is occasional little dalliance
with it, but yeah, but yeah, they are half hours and don't
start until seven forty five or even eight. It's not unusual to say eight
anymore. That's not no, And it didn't and I guess you say this
and I, you know, get off my lawn, old man talking.
But you know, it's it. It didn't used to be like this,
you know, it used to be these games would kick off at seven fifteen.
Oh, it's senior night, it's gonna kick off at seven thirty.
No, if it's senior night, it's going to kick off at eight fifteen.
The clock's going to be stopped more than it's running because the JV teams,
sophomore teams, freshman teams, whichever your conference says the prelim, they're
throwing them all around two and with a lower success rate because a lower skill
level. So the clock's always stoppages. Yeah, just the way the game
has evolved has evolved past, like these current schedules we have. Unless you
just think it's cool being at a high school football field till eleven, I'm
sure some people. I'm sure the kids love it. Maybe not the players
as much, but I'm I'm sure the kids who are like, hey,
mom, I'm going to the game with some friends and they come home at
eleven thirty and have a valid excuse. I'm sure they're all about that,
but for me personally, I would I would love to see, you know,
let's get some dedicated start times, let's move these prelim games, and
let's kind of get back to sanity in these closing and when these games end.
I would like. If they're not going to do that, and I
don't think they will, at least let's stop deluding ourselves and call the start
time APM. If that's what we're gonna do, let's at least do it
that way so we can plan and there's no delusion about what's happening, and
fans know and we parents know, and least importantly, the media no that,
Okay, this isn't starting until eight. So that that's my selfish compromise.
First. I do think it will move that way eventually, and not
because of any of the reasons we're saying necessarily, but you know, I
think at the end of the day, you know, you see program numbers
going down, you see teams moving games around because they can't feel okay,
can we do our can we play freshmen here? That way we can do
the JV on Monday. That way we can have the sophomores come up and
play varsity and not have to play eight quarters of football. And you know,
you see all these all the switching around teams. I think eventually,
as you see program numbers kind of, you know, dip a little,
not everywhere, but in a lot of programs they are, and it takes
two to play a game, I think you'll start to see teams move away
and move more towards that small school model of Okay, yeah, we have
a varsity game on Friday nights at seven. We have our prelim games Monday.
You know, right now, it's these schools that have three levels,
and you I hope, I hope that that continues where these teams can maintain
three levels. But for these teams and their opponents nine weeks a year to
maintain the three levels, it's not the way it's trending. So I think
if it were to change, that would be what would change it. But
I hope, I hope numbers stay high and they can maintain the three levels.
I just hope they start varsity games at seven. That's that's a dream
that's never never gonna. I don't think so. Anyway, maybe maybe,
but maybe Where are you at this Friday numbers? But was that? Where
are you at this Friday to fill midnight? I amn, I'm an Aurora
actually the cal mattea Valley, the barb start DBC play brutal Week three loss
to us Samberg just forty one thirty four. They put up some points,
they had a chance. I mean, I would say to tie it late,
but they weren't kicking extra points. It was it was all twos.
The special teams weren't there. By the way, if you did watch Live
with Friday Night Drive, you would have seen me and Jimmy Musual make good
prediction about how the second half of that game would play out. So there's
a plug for that. Note to Kyle, please put flashing the link on
screen at this point for Hey, when you're right, you gotta shout it
because everyone else shouts it when you're wrong. Exactly. I just went the
link on Friday Night Live. Get that out there for people. So because
it's wait, no Live with Friday Night Drive, right, Yes, we'll
just dub over and it's a cool thing. I don't know if you haven't
checked it out just during game times, which spanned from as we said,
seven until about eleven thirty, and I think the show might go later than
that. But really cool thing. We're kind of, uh, you know,
it's a work in progress and I think it's improved a little every week.
But basically, you know, we have a couple of studio hosts that
are going over scores, talking match subtle with don't don't be humble with it.
This thing is kicking. But it's three weeks old born, you know,
it's it's kicking all kinds of uh yeah, and if you remember it
started week nine last year, we kind of first debuted it with all the
playoff exactly exactly, but really cool. I was able to join in at
halftime for my game last week, and uh, you know, just kind
of enjoy, even though I'm on a sideline, enjoy talking about some other
things. They have the scores pop up, they talk matchup, so you
can access that at Friday Night Drive or through any of our shaw on local
websites, so you know, Daily Chronicle, My web Times, News Tribune,
Morris Harald News, just any of those sites. If you choose to
go to a middle it'll basically take you by the hand and lead you into
football from eight to eleven Friday nights. Just absolutely killer source of information and
analysis from the game's Kyle neighbors and like I said, Jim mutually do a
great job as hosts. Steve Susy filling in last week did a good job
for a very ill Kyle. So there was a twenty seven minute plugger.
I'm expecting a big cash drop now to lappen for I don't think that is
so I am. I'm assuming we'll be calling in because it's a pretty big
game in terms of both of these teams needing a win or probably not getting
the five wins. Mattea comes in owing three, Cal comes in one and
two. This is this is the game that both of them think they can
win, and this is a game that the team that's wrong is probably not
going to the postseason in a tough place exactly. But I think that's Uh,
I think we've got you covered for this week. Uh in the Illinois
Valley area. You didn't say where you were at. Oh, I'll be
at Mantino at Street. Well, yeah, but I'm very I'm actually very
interested to see. This is one of those ones you know Street at the
Bulldogs have Circle at the beginning of the year, is a winnable game,
you know, if Christian Benning's unable to play with that shoulder injury, is
it still a winnable game? And you know, if they get it,
you're two and two and all of a sudden things look a lot better.
So so you just kind of have to I'm interested to see how the team
comes out, if Christian Benning can play, if he's limited, and just
kind of what that matchup looks like leading us into you know, basically week
five, year half point of the regular season. You know, if you
get there two or three and two, it's a lot different than getting there
two and three or one and four. Yeah, there's no difference. There's
no bigger difference really between two and three and three and two. Those are
two very very different records. Yeah, they play apart. It could be
a one play difference, but it changes the entire look of the second half
of the season to you sometimes for teams. So so yeah, yeah,
yeah, I'm looking forward to a good one. And uh, you know,
honestly, I think Week four, you know, it fits so weird,
but I mean I remember, you know, our colleague Steve Susy wrote,
you know, Week one, man, there's some great matchups and you
know, wow, I don't remember a Week one like this, and then
Week two Blue, Week one away with some of the awesome showdowns, matchups
and Providence rely a Catholic, and you know some of the matchups across the
state. And then you get into conference like wow, conference playing, it's
just you just you forget sometimes when you're not in high school football season that
man, every week's awesome and and there's a reason it is, you know,
the king of high school sports, because week after week after week,
it's just it's just the great games keep coming. I'm looking forward to a
great week for I want to talk some Salukis. Are you good? They
got the dub? I'm good? H so sorry sorry Eddie. Wow.
Hey, I'm just the beat reporter. I I and I use the tough
fourteen eleven loss to SIU after a big win app Austin College. The Lord
knows what's going on there, although I will find out in about an hour
and forty five minutes at and I use press conference daily, uh yeah,
daily at Toronto dot com for all and i U coverage. If you're interested,
but I think that's enough plugging. We've spent over twenty seven minutes plugging
various projects. Yeah, there was plenty of and he is delicious. There
is plenty of insightful I thought, at least from JTSN insightful Illinois Valley Analysis.
So thank you for joining us for the third week. We hope to
see you back here four week four. Next week he was JT Penalty.
I'm Eddie Carriffio. Thank you very much later, Schweiker Gannison Krazak Rundio proudly
sponsors the Friday Night Drive. I'm Mike Krazak. If you've been injured,
we are ready to take on the insurance company and get you to the end
zone. We've recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for our clients. Visit GA
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