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up everyone, and welcome back to the Friday Night Drive Podcast. I am
Kyle Neighbors along with host Steve Susy, here to recap Week four of the
Illinois high school football season for you. And it was a fun one across
the state. Whether it was games coming down to the wire. We had
a couple of different games lose their lighting in the last last minute or so.
We even had a full slate on Thursday night with more than two dozen
games. Suits a lot to talk about this week. Yeah, it was
an interesting week. I don't know if there were a lot of like matchups
between like top teams that we were really looking forward to, but I thought
there were a whole bunch of games out there that were like interesting, defining
games between teams that maybe had a loss or two and kind of defining the
separation between those squads, and some of them came down to the wire so
much that I'm not even sure if we even got much definition after those games
were concluded, but it was. I thought it was real interesting in that
we got a lot of context this week. That's one of the things that
I really like about this process. Absolutely, it was a real fun time
on Friday and night. We hope you joined us for Live with Friday Night
Drive from eight to eleven PM. SUS and Jimmy Musual co hosted that and
we had a lot of games come down to the wire and we got a
lot to talk about this week. But before we do, make sure you
head over to Friday Night Drive dot com. We got a ton of content
coming your way this week, and we wrap up week four and start looking
towards Week five, including suses updated playoff projecting that I'd be dropping there.
You can follow us on Twitter or x at Kyle Neighbors at the SUS.
You can also follow Friday Night Drive at fn drive. You can find Friday
Night Drive at FATE on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and SUS. You
know the one thing that you took away from this weekend or your top takeaway
from this weekend. You can find that right now. And what we learned
in week four from sus which is on Friday Night Drive dot com. There
are a lot of a lot of losses stacking up for a lot of teams.
Yeah, I mean I looked at it from the construct of this.
We have about eighty teams left in the state that are undefeated, but we
have less than two hundred that are above the five hundred mark. And that
to put that into context, I can't ever remember being through four weeks and
having, you know, having that number not be in the two hundred areas,
so that it doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things.
I mean, there are nearly five hundred teams in the state, but
a difference of about twenty teams that are you know, now sitting at the
five hundred mark rather than above it down the line, I think that could
be very telling to what we might be facing in regards to, you know,
the records of the teams that get into the playoffs. I don't necessarily
think we're going to have more teams get it get to five wins. I
think we're going to have more teams at five wins, If that makes any
sense, I mean less teams at six and seven wins, more at five,
and the same amount still being playoff eligible at five wins and more.
Because that's what I think, I think where breakdown is. This is what
I think you're essentially getting at here is well, we're gonna still have favorites
in each of the eight classes when we get to you know that that playoff
Saturday. But what we're gonna find out or what you're kind of leaning in
towards here is it's gonna be pretty wild behind those favorites because we're gonna have
a lot of teams that are going to end up with three or four losses
that are really quality teams. And it's just you know, you're gonna have
even if you know, we're used to that in seven, eight and eight
A where they go one to thirty two, where you have teams in the
twenties that can beat teams that are you know, number seven or eight,
but even in these six team team brackets where you're going to have teams with
three or four losses that are going to be you know, playing late into
the postseason. Yeah, another thing that starts to come out of this is
that you know, don't have a lot of six win teams that are usually
hosting opening round playoff games. I'm seeing it early in the projection. Now
it's happening quite a bit where it looks like that might happen more. We're
seeing sometimes entire sides of the bracket that the under seat, the lower seated
team is a five win team. That's also something that doesn't happen very often
where you have that many five win teams in one side of the bracket.
It's I think what we're looking at here is we're going to have more toss
up games than we've ever had before as we move forward, games where you
look at it on paper beforehand, look at their resumes and say, I
really think this can go either way. And there are always some of those
every week. I just think we're gonna have more of them this year.
I think there's just, you know, I'm always reluctant use the word parody.
I just think we have a lot of really good, like good football
teams, above average football teams, and they all are kind of congregating in
the same conferences. It's just that's that's where we're at right now. So
I think there are a few teams that have separated themselves from the rest of
the group. But I think that team a step, that group of step
behind those teams is larger than it may have ever been. I think no
conference in the state showed or demonstrated this better than the Southwest Suburban Conference on
Friday nights Sues And there's several games we want to talk about this week while
recapping, you know, Week four, but the place to start is at
Sandburg Lockport game, because Lockport played really well to start the season at three
and oh Sandberg was more of an unknown. I think we can both agree
that Lockport was a a pretty substantial favorite coming into this game Sandberg. Listen,
we both love what Troy McAllister does as a head coach with his programs.
I mean, you saw it at Phillips, you saw it in its
first year at Sandberg, like no one expected that to be a playoff team.
They make the playoff, but they did take a step back last year.
So you don't really know exactly what to expect in this game against Lockbore.
As I said, we had the Porters of the significant favorite. Sandburg
ends up winning that game thirty to twenty eight, ends up blocking it in
a hand. Declan Glenn, I believe was the player for Sandberg get the
pall on the field goal attempt Sadbrig wins thirty to twenty eight. But that's
a perfect example of how unpredictable this season. It's starting to play out well
that particular division of the Southwest Suburban I'll be honest, I looked at that
division before the week started, and this is absolutely no disrespect to Sandberg.
It's more of a nod to the quality of the rest of the conference.
If I was to stack it one through five, I had Sandburg fifth heading
into this week, you know, behind obviously Lincoln Way East, behind lock
Court, who we had talked about being favored over Sandberg in this game,
behind Bowling Brook, and behind Homewood Flosomore. Well, Sandberg, in my
mind, just beat the second best team in the conference. So then I
have to restack my whole way of thinking they're good enough to beat the second
best team in the conference. In my mind, they're probably good enough to
beat the third and fourth best teams in the conference. But then you look
at those are they better than those teams? I don't know this is when
later in the season you have a little bit of cross referencing available to which
you don't have yet. But that one result caused me to reassess and reevaluate
four different teams just in that division. So and that's what I think what
we're going to kind of be looking at from week to week. We're gonna
have to see is that a fluke or is that something that they're going to
consistently be able to do down the line. And that's that's not answered right
now. But in my mind, that was a huge telling win for Sandberg,
the fact that I didn't really think that they would have a chance not
I mean, I thought they would probably get beat somewhat comfortably in that game.
But that raised my level of value on Sandberg and then causes me to
give a lot more thought to each and every one of Sandburg's remaining games.
And you know, Bradley bourbon A lincoln Weight East matchup in our last Friday
Night as well, and we talked about it in the preview that Bradley bourbon
A for some reason had really given Lincoln Way East fits over the last decade
or so. But lincoln Way East does a pretty good job in this one
takes down Bradley bourbon A twenty seven to three sous And as we were talking
about earlier, this is a case where I feel like in each class right
now, there are one to two teams that I feel are head and shoulders
essentially above the rest of them. And then there's just a huge pile of
teams that we're looking at in that six win range. Lincoln Way East is
one of them. Mount Carmel's another on East Saint Louis I'd put up there,
yeah, and Loyola would be added to that group. But I mean,
they're they're just I mean, like you said, there's there's a gap
developing. I mean, and it's with Lincoln Away East. You look at
them at the beginning of the game, you think that they're you know,
you know, they just they put on their hard hat, they go to
work, and by the end of the game they seem to have found a
way to separate themselves from whoever they're playing. And that was kind of the
case on on Friday night against Bradley. It was just it was a field
goal battle early and then before you knew it, Link Away East had ran
off. I believe twenty seven consecutive points and turn the game into a runaway.
They just meticulously just kind of take you apart. They're not that flashy,
and I don't know if they if they really have a home run hitter
on that offense, but what they are going to do is they're just they're
not gonna make a lot of mistakes. They're just going to kind of grind
you into submission. And that's too much for a lot of teams to take.
I'm sitting here kind of got lost in my own thought because I realized
that I included East Saint Louis in that list, and I absolutely believe they
deserve to be on that list of teams. But there's a more than i'd
say, more than fifty fifty chance that I get a comment talking about their
record and the fact that you know, they've they've lost more than once in
a title game where they've been a heavy favorite. Suis Yeah, And I
mean, and that's one of the things you just, I mean, you
have to kind of take stock of the things that they do. I mean,
they there are three of the four teams that they've played thus far this
season are teams that are currently ranked among the top one hundred programs in the
nation right now. Nobody else is doing that. I mean, granted,
you have to compete well and occasionally beat some of those teams to actually have
that mean something. And this current brand V Saint lou has done that.
I mean they deep a nationally ranked team out of Maryland earlier this year at
the time, in the top thirty. So yeah, there's there's a it's
a it's kind of a double edged sword with East St. Louis trying to
decipher where they really fall in the grand scheme of things, because they come
back to the regular season in Illinois this past week and win their game forty
seven and nothing well, and that's I want to ask you this. So,
this isn't the first time East Saint Louis has taken losses early in the
season to you know, very very good out of state teams. And we've
you know, we've talked about them being in the favorite in their class.
Right two years ago, they go out as a favorite and carry Grove up
sets them in the state title game. Last year they go out as a
heavy favorite and absolutely destroy a very good Prayer Ridge team and the state title
game. Now, this is an East Saint Louis team that lost its entire
starting offensive line, and that's that's just not your standard offensive line to lose.
I mean, was it three Division one football players, Well, I
believe I believe four of them sign Power five offers, so yeah, yeah,
and so on another one it's also playing college football. Yeah yeah,
so that and that we're tough. But so my question, I guess to
you is just what I say. I still believe they are a considerable favorite.
But when you look at maybe the last three teams, is it the
most susceptible so maybe getting tripped up in the playoffs that we've seen, You
know, I don't know if that there's an answer to that. That's that's
clear at this point. The one thing that you have to recognize about this
group, it's very experienced quarterback who's been through the battles of a lot of
these a lot of these games against elite competition. Yeah it was starting as
a freshman. Yeah. And still a lot of very nice pieces on the
defensive side of the ball are still in place. So it's not like the
cupboard is bear here and they're kind of living on their laurels. Right.
You know, when I saw them in Week one. Obviously not the same
offensive line, but that wouldn't have been the reason why I thought they got
beat in the Mount Carmel game. It was not that. I mean that
it was not like a glaring, glaring problem for them, and that was
only in week one, and they're only going to get better because this program
has shown a proclivity to developing offensive lineman. So you know that's the thing
about them. I see your point, and I understand where you're going with
it. I don't even know it's a point. I don't even know it's
a point, more of a question to you as someone who's now you know,
I know you got to see him early live and have gone back to
watch to make it to these other nationally ranked teams. I mean, the
last time I've seen them flies over the last couple of years, and it's
been in those title games. So you know, that's that's the only reason
I brought it up. Well, And sometimes when I get into this discussion
with people about like, oh, yeah, well, they've lost games like
that before, I think people look past how well Carry Grove played in that
football game that remains one of the best state championship games I've ever seen.
Sometimes I got sometimes you gotta tip your cap to Carry Grove and say they
brought it. They didn't back down from them. They won that football game.
It was I didn't think it was an East suit. Saint Louis let
down Carry Grove beat them. Let's just be honest about it. It was
the best team effort I've seen in a state championship game. It's the best
coaching effort I've seen in terms of the way they scheme. Like Brad Sieberg
did an incredible job in that game. And I don't want to, Like
I said, I don't want to brand did a great job with the players
also, I mean flying around. They even lost. I'm now in blanket.
They lost their top fullback in the first half I believe to an a
c L injury and still were able to get the job done. Just an
incredible effort to get that. But you saw it last year that Prairie original
team very good, had improved throughout the postseason as well, had a quarterback
in Tyler Basie who set the state record for rushing yards in a season.
And it just didn't matter last year. Yeah, yeah, I know,
And it's it's a special I mean it's a special program. They do a
lot of great things, and I feel like sometimes some people might feel like
I'm over hyping them a little bit, but I mean they it's an extraordinarily
talented group. They do really good things. And the ambition that they have
in I mean, they could find a schedule in Illinois, they I mean
they could find opponents willing, I mean enough opponents willing to play them.
They don't have to do what they're doing, but to go out and do
that, I mean speaks to a larger purpose. I mean that's they're trying
to give their kids the best possible opportunity to just show themselves for college recruiters
and and play a schedule that challenges them on a week to week basis.
And right now it's it's starting to be a little bit of a problem because
they once again they still don't have a week game. But I now that
they're back in the Illinois portion of their schedule, I frankly, other than
maybe Edwardsville, I don't think there's a team remaining on their schedule that's going
to really even push them. I was it you saying that I didn't even
look at the result this fact, I guess, and that was O'Fallon.
No, that was Belleville East this week, which is was three and oh
entering the game. So it's not like they were exactly rolling over some you
know weekling. I mean double East is East beat Lincoln Way West the previous
week. I mean, they they're they're not a bad team. They're gonna
probably make the playoffs at the very least, I think so. And I
mean, like I said, they just they just steam rolled right over them.
They play O'Fallon this week, and then you know, Edwardsville down the
line. But they don't have a Week nine game because their Week nine opponent
dropped them and actually switched to playing Edwardsville. So that's that's what I mean.
I don't I don't know if they're going to find think about think about
that. You you you dropped them to switch to Edwardsville, which is not
exactly walking the park. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the
rat I never did hear what the rationale was for making that switch. Which
which team it was U Saint Louis, Okay, it was an it's a
it's a Saint Louis based team, Okay, I can't remember which one,
because I thought it was Cardinal Ritter, but it's not. It's somebody else.
Okay, Well, yeah, now that I after I completely derailed.
Okay, yeah, after I completely derailed our conversation, Let's get back to
talking Week four and the Southwest Snbourban Conference. We have one more game we
wanted to hit on there and that was Lincoln Way West holding off Lincoln Waight
Central. Maybe I just got a little too high on Lincoln Waight Central here.
This onen't surprised me. Sue's not overly so, but I don't know
enough that it raised raised an eyebrow. Yeah, I mean can get that
game. Heading into it, Lincoln Wait Central seemed to be riding a significant
wave of momentum, went down to Illinois State and beat O'Fallon on a neutral
field. Was feeling pretty good about themselves. And if you happen to see
it on you know, Friday Night Drive Live, uh, you know,
Dave Woodburn, the Lincoln Way Central coach, came on and joined us,
and uh to say, I mean, it was nice of him to come
on after a loss. It we weren't expecting him to but shout shout out
absolute you know, true professional and and that's awesome to coach Woodburn appreciate him
jumping on for after a loss, but to say that he was a little
disenchanted with his team's focus heading into that game would probably be a little bit
of an understatement. You could you could tell he was still steaming a little
bit after they They did not come out to play very well, falling behind
twenty one nothing in that game. They did rally force overtime, but ended
up losing to a Lincoln Way West team that frankly looked like a substantial underdog
as they headed it into the game with a backup quarterback in place after losing
Colecraft and for the season. You know, just on paper, heading into
that game, it just looked like all the boxes were checked for Lincoln Way
Central in that one. I think never can tell in that district rivalry,
it's just it's it was kind of a reverse of the year before where it
felt like link Away West had all the momentum and Lincoln Way Central was kind
of spinning its wheels, and Linkway Central beats Lincoln Way West. So I
guess when you when you look at this game and look at the history of
this game, you just kind of you kind of have to throw out some
of those external factors and figure it's just going to be one of these back
and forth, you know, throwing haymakers at one another. You know,
I said earlier that the result was surprising, and it is still somewhat surprising,
but I think, as you hit on there, the more surprising thing
was the fact that they were down twenty one Linkolway Central found itself down twenty
one zero. I do think as as as coach, they would burn hit
on after the game when he joined us that you know, it should serve
as a good learning moment because they didn't lay down, They got back in
that game, they took it overtime. I think the Nights are going to
be fine after that. That was probably one of those situations where you know,
you you'd rather happen now than the first round the playoffs. So yeah,
yeah, And I mean with their remaining schedule they I mean, if
if over confidence or any of those things might have been an issue, and
and he wouldn't directly say that that was something that might have contributed to the
loss, but you know, it's better they, like you said, better
they resolve it now because there's a lot of a lot more hurdles coming up
on that schedule for them, and they need to maybe they needed to be
reminded, you need to be prepped and ready for each one of your games
because there's I mean, there's a lot of really good football teams remaining on
Lincoln White c schedule starting with this week. Guess who they've got. They've
got Sandberg, So you know that's they're playing another team that obviously has a
lot of wind in their sales right now. So I got to get back
on the horse and keep going because nobody's going to slow down for him.
One more game before we hit a quick commercial break here, Susy wanted to
hit on say Ignation taking down Merit, and I'm right there with you.
This was not a result I expected to see. Well, I mean,
I think it speaks to the whole Catholic League in general. This week there
were so many of those games, you know, inside of the actual divisions
now and these crossovers and all these other things. They're all well and good,
but you need to kind of figure out where those teams stack and and
looking at that Merits Saint Ignatious game and kind of the results that coming into
it, I felt like it could go either way, but I was leaning
towards Marist. It's just it was just one of those games that kind of
surprised me at the end of it, just Saint Ignatius had seemed to struggle
to kind of, like I guess, deliver a knockout blow late in games.
They've been in almost all of their games this year, but the earlier
lost to Fenwick. They just couldn't get quite get over the hump. But
that Catholic League, and I talk about this a lot, but I really
think it's worth mentioning absolute craziness. So many teams right now are sitting there
with two and two records in that league, and we're halfway through the season,
so we've got you know, it's going to be a challenge for a
lot of these teams to avoid falling into that four and five gap because every
week is such difficulty. When you look at it, there's you know,
there's five teams left that are undefeated. That list includes a couple of teams
that I would have been surprised if you would have told me before the season
that they were going to be on it. And then five more at three
and one, a whole mess of teams at two and two, two teams
at one and three including Marist, and a grand total of one at oh
and four, and that's Nazareth, which you wouldn't have been on either.
So just kind of a melting pot of you know, a lot of right
in the middle of the pack records in that league right now. Yeah,
saying Ignas at two and two, you know, it's a team that played
really well in the postseason last year as a considerable considerable amount from that team
that lost a close battle against Prairie Ridge. Uh, you know, including
justin Scott. That's a big win against Marris there because even though you know,
like they played Nazis, we got one and four. But come on,
like we all know that that's not your typical oh and four team that
that it's it's so every win, You're right, it's gonna be really tough
in the Catholically, that's a big one for an Ignatious. It can be
even still looking at that, looking at the remaining schedule. Man, it's
just everyone it's it's hard to get to five wins for these teams. Yeah,
you can do that with almost any team. I mean, we were
talking with with Dave Archibald for Saint Buieter after their win on Friday Night.
They got them to three and one, and and you know, I mentioned
to coach Archibald that, you know, you gotta make you feel a little
bit better that you've gotten through these first four with three wins in the bank.
And he's like, you know, we got these five left and none
of them are going to be a cake walk. And he's right. I
mean, they're all games on paper that they're either you know, clips or
maybe brother maybe fighters the underdog. Yeah yeah, Brother Rice Carmel Montini,
Saint Ignatious Marmion. Yeah, I mean yeah, Well, all right,
well stick with us. We got a lot more to talk about here to
wrap before we wrap up our conversation on week four. This is State Representative
Steve Right 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 him your support.
Welcome back into the Friday Night Drive podcast. Make sure you go to Friday
Night Drive dot com to find all of our content throughout the week. Here
as we head into week five. Right now, we have a story up
suits that I want to hit on from an update from the Marengo Johnsburg game.
If you were watching live with Friday Night Drive or you know, if
you follow high school football in general and Illinois, you probably heard about a
scary injury that took place in that game Marengo Marango Junior Altenburg Bright. I
had a scary neck injury in that one. Ended up being airlifted to Advocate
Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. But good news to share on that from
Joe Stevenson in the story that is posted right now on Friday Night Drive dot
com is Alton is back home. Arrived there on Sunday afternoon. Sounds like
he escaped the worst case he has is able to walk struggling right now,
but they do expect him to make a full recovery. Has I believe full
movement in his right side and limited in his left side. I apologize if
I'm flopping that on the side there, but they do expect full, full
movement to come back here in short time. Suits. Yeah, that's good
to hear. I mean, obviously a tremendously scary moment for everyone involved,
but good to hear that he's the prognosis at least at this point in time
is really really good. So, you know, the best wishes to him
and his family and the journey that he has ahead and getting back to normal.
Yeah, it's something we've dealt with it several times in our professional career.
I've no, I've had a couple where I've been at games myself.
I know Tim Fowlick without covering that. You know. The thing I think
tended a good job how to try and to convey that to readers and it's
talking about on social media is I always feel terrible for the kids that have
to go back out there and finish a high school football game in that situation.
Yeah, I mean, you know, keeping focus after he's seeing something
that like that happened for everybody, that's got to be difficult. I mean,
that's that's just something that is going to sit in the back of your
mind for a while, but particularly right in the moment, you know,
not knowing exactly what's going on with you know, with your teammate. Uh,
it can be something that obviously causes a lot of stress and and and
then being asked to you know, to to stay, you know, stay
in the moment of the football game that you're trying to play. Sometimes seems
like a little bit too much to ask. Yeah. Absolutely, But it's
it's great to hear good news on Alton. We with him the best in
his recovery. Even mentioned in this to uh that he's already got a date
target he hopes to play again this season. Sus, Well, you know
that the ambitious and and I hope that he's able to do that. But
but yeah, that's that's good that he's thinking that way, that you know,
keeps that positive frame of mind. His boy, it would be easy
to get caught up in so the real negatives of the situation. Good to
see that he's not allowing that to happen. Yeah, well, you know
elsewhere on Friday night had you know, you run into weird things every week,
but this one, we had two games that pretty much the exact same
time and the closing minutes on Friday night, sus have their lights go out?
Do you ever have that one happened before? Yeah, I've had I've
had a power outage of a couple of games in the past that I've been
at, but nothing quite like the way that those scenarios played out, where
it was both games that were heading right down to the wire in terms of
the outcome. U the IC Catholic Nazareth game was heading towards overtime, not
quite there, I see. Catholic was on its last drive in the fourth
quarter with under thirty seconds to play when the power went out. Fenwick was
on its last drive of the game, trying to score a go ahead touchdown
with less than a minute left when the power went out. So ultimately Fenwick
Fenwick threw a couple of incomplete passes to try to score the touchdown and then
kick the game winning field goal, but not after sitting through a twenty minute
delay. So I've heard of freezing the kicker, but that seems like a
pretty extreme case of it, you know, because I mean the kicker noticed
that he was probably it might come down to him and just spent the entire
time in the dark thinking about the context of the kick that he was probably
going to be asked to make there for a while. So definitely definitely a
unique situation. This is just the first of four rid and Night Drive podcast
coming year away this week. Eddie Cariffio and JT. Penalty will have the
Illinois Valley edition of our podcast where they talk about everything out in the western
part of this day. And Josh Welgi, who congrats Josh just becoming a
first time dad last week. He's back this week he'll be joining in joining
with Jake Bartleson for the Western Suburbs podcast and then SEUs we'll be back later
this week to preview week five and we'll have Joe Stevenson on to talk Prairie
Ridge Carry Grove then. But frankly, it's it's I'm too excited to not
just start diving into this now because I posted the question behind the scenes for
you guys to talk about with live on Friday Night Drive, was is there
a chance that we see Prairie Ridge and Carry Grove both hit the play in
state title games? And to give a little context here to listeners, these
two teens Fox Valley Conference rivals go into this game four no this week on
Friday Night. But you know they're usually battling in the Class six A playoff
for the last decade or so for the chance to go to the six A
title game. It's been every year since twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen twenty sixteen
that one of these two teams have been a representative there, but for the
first time since then. You know, in this time period, Prairie Ridge
is trending heavily towards me in a five A playoff team suits now a little
more of contact. Pray Ridge just really soundly beat a good Huntley team last
week. Carry Grove just beat a good Jacob's team last week. I'm starting
to feel like sus that this is not just a question we should be asking
but almost not inevitability is too strong a word, but almost the favorites is
that too strong as well? You know, I don't know if I quite
go. I mean, I would maybe put a co favorite label on them.
There's a couple of teams that I think are definitely worthy of consideration for
that. You know, that situation in six A. I think you gotta
look to potential of Geneva falling into that group, and with the enrollment falling
the way that it does, I think Lake Zurich is a possibility for six
A North. This year, they've been bouncing back and forth between the six
and seven eight fields, So six A North is in my opinion, not
all that deep, but I think that the couple teams at the top of
kind of separated themselves, and obviously Carry Grove would be amongst that group.
Five A is a little bit I think i'd be I'd be okay with with
declaring that that, you know, the Prayer Ridge is probably the favorite they're
In the past, you'd obviously have to give a nod to somebody like Nazareth,
But now we now we're in the situation that Nazareth is in where I
think it's probably unlikely that they're going to make the field this year. So
yeah, I would say I'm comfortable with putting Prairie Ridge on the on the
favorite line in five A North. Right now, they're sitting five or six
teams deep and five A the projection, so that means are probably gonna end
up there too. I know we talked about this every year, but I'm
more confident than ever that with their new enrollment number, that they're a five
eight team this year. All right, well you heard it here first everyone,
Prairie Ridge and Carry Crown. I've got ahead of myself here, But
now looking forward to that game on Friday night, we'll talk with Joe Stevenson
later in the week, let's go to some small school football. Though quickly
sus a game that we had a lot of interest in and was Sterling Newman
going out and playing rock Ridge. And the biggest interest there was you're talking
Newman as a is it two way? Yeah? Two A right there?
Actually one yeah, that's what I said, two A. And immediately it
was like, wait a second, I feel like they're down to one.
Yeah, Newman down to one A goes out to rock Ridge, a seven
eight team and ends up winning that game. And over time, you know,
Rock Ridge isn't exactly you know, a ti endom a program by any
meets, but still that's a one A school against seven A. That was
that's that's an entertaining one Well, I mean just let's let's talk about this
for a one second and text. Sterling Newman's Central Catholics enrollment number this year's
two hundred and ten. That's their natural enrollment. They don't have it multiplier
anymore. Rock Islands enrollment number is sixteen hundred eighty six a half. So
I mean, by the numbers of that, Rock Islands eight times bigger than
Sterling Newman. So it was a contextual game that I was very interested in
because it's one of a couple of games this year that pairs teams from the
Three Rivers Conference against the teams from the Western Big Six. The reason for
that would be St. Bede left left the Three Rivers Conference to join the
Chicagoland Prairie, leaving Three Rivers teams with this open date in their schedule that
they had to fill somehow pretty late, right, Yeah, it was fairly
late late in the process when that was announced. Usually teams planned like two
years in advance on their schedules. They did not have that much time.
Western Big Six teams had to filidate on their schedule because Rock Island, Alaman
elected to not play varsity football this season. Yeah, so finding, you
know, matches for teams that this late in the season, you know,
week five, Weeks six, week seven, you know, week four are
difficult because most teams are already ankle deep in their conference season. They have
an even number of teams, so they don't have a team out there that
fits with them. So that's why this game materialized. And I remembered when
it was scheduled, I kind of raised my eyebrow and said, you know,
I have a lot of respect for what Sterling Newman does. But man,
that is a huge disparity enrollment number. I mean, that's that,
I mean that might be too much to overcome when we have another interesting matchup
of those two conferences again this week when Sterling goes to Princeton. Yea,
yeah, we'll talk about that l Yeah, but it's it's it's definitely a
situation where the three Rivers team is putting themselves at a substantial disadvantage. But
unfortunately for them, they didn't have the option because of having enough time to
find a game. They couldn't take a forfeit if if they were unable to
fill that date so that they have a certain amount of time to do that.
In the case of the Western Big Six teams with Rock Island element,
they made that decision fairly late in the process, so if they were not
able to find a game, they were allowed to take a forfeit victory over
Elements. So just kind of a you know, maschination thing with how some
of these games happened, but definitely a really, really impressive win for Sterling
Newman. I know, like you mentioned, Rock Island not quite at the
level that they've been in past years and they are owing four right now.
But I mean they've played Manuka, they've played gun Lap, and they've played
Quincy to start this season. All of those teams are strong teams. Yeah,
and they're gonna all gonna be playoff teams. So looking at their own
for it isn't like they're, you know, just a punching bag. They're
they're they're a decent team I think in the grand scheme of things. But
a huge win for for Sterling Newman. You know, that will help them
in a lot of ways moving forward. All right, SEUs, before we
get out of here, let's talk. We had about two dozen Thursday night
games and you got your first Barrington experience. You got to see the Broncos
win against New Treer on Thursday night. How was that and how was the
pork chop sandwich? Well, first of all, the pork chop sandwich was
outstanding. I mean, I know that the IHA is sponsoring another one of
those those pork chop sandwich tournaments and I will protest the bracket if the Barrington
pork chop is not included in it. So that's that's my stance on Matt.
So uh, very good there, but a good, solid football game
with new Trier, and you know, I was impressed with Barrington, but
actually it kind of taught me. It gave me a little bit of lesson
about what I thought a new Trier because I thought they made a very good
accounting for themselves, had an opportunity to potentially tie the game in the last
minute. But Barrington played a good exactly what I expected to them. They
were very solid. They didn't do a lot that was really flashy, but
you know, they beat a pretty good football team in New Trier, in
my opinion, the team that's probably going to be playoff bound, and we'll
hear from again before the season's over. But good sound, you know,
effort from Barrington. Did what they had to do to win the football game,
didn't make a lot of mistakes, and I expect that whoever you know,
ends up having to deal with them for the rest of the season.
We'll have their hands full with the Broncos. All right, Well, we're
gonna go ahead and get out of here. But we appreciated everyone who's tuned
in to listen to this edition of the Friday Night Drive podcast, and I
appreciate sus you jumping on and spending some time talking football with me this morning,
man, because in about an hour from now, I'm going to go
do a live stream with Sean Hammond, our our Chicago Bears beat reporter,
and this is going to be a much more pot or This conversation this morning
was a much more positive conversation than the one I'm going to be having this
afternoon talking football. Yeah, I can't imagine that that will be a you
know, a Roses and candy type of conversation, because that's not going to
be a great discussion I would imagine. Yeah, We're we do that podcast
live. By the way, you can find y'all locals YouTube page if you'd
like to join us live. You can also download the Bears Insider podcasts if
you're interested. But I expect the commenters today to probably have pitchforks and pitchforks
ready to go, sus and I can't blame them after watching that game yesterday.
And unless you're a huge enthusiast of screen passes and screen passes only,
I can't imagine. I can't imagine. I can't imagine, you know what
it's going to go too well, or screen passes that go for six or
pick sixes in inexplicable situations. Yeah, I don't know. I don't I
know that I would probably not be all that good at calling a game,
but boy, sometimes I'm watching that. And a full disclosure, I claim
no allegiance to any National Football League franchise, so but I usually watched the
Bears on a regular basis, and I'm not going to say it's for comedy
purposes, but sometimes it feels like you definitely could have had some Betty Hill
music playing here in that game. Yea head, it would would not have
been out of place. But all right, Well, thank you everyone who
joined us for this edition of the Priday and Night Drive podcast. I am
Kyle Neighbor for Steve Susy. We will talk to you later this week.
Schweiker, Ganison, Krazak Rundio Proudley sponsors to Friday Night Drive. I'm Mike
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