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com. What's up everyone, and welcome back to the Friday Night Drive Podcast.
I am Kyle Neighbors along with my co host Steve Sussi. It is
Thursday, October fifth, and we are here to get you ready for Week
seven of the high school football season. We'll have Michael Duojack and Joe Stevenson
on to preview everything as we usually do, but we want to start this
week with a story that dropped at Friday Night Drive dot com on Tuesday,
and that is the Main South. An update on the Main South investigation that
Friday Night Drive had been working on since March. If you guys recall back
in March IHSA, the IHSA released sanctions again against Maine South. They forfeited
their win from the twenty twenty two season and were placed on probation for having
ineligible players on their roster. Michael, you have spent since March digging through
email, through Freedom of Information Act requests and multiple rounds of interviews with district
officials the IHSA. And while the story we certainly were able to advance the
story, one of the big things is we tried to make clear is frankly
because of not getting cooperation, there's a lot that we just don't know.
Still. Yeah, I think the biggest questions, I mean, obviously when
you're a reporter of the biggest questions are you know, who one where run
and high why and all that kind of stuff. And we don't really know
who or what really happened in this, you know, in the story where
you know, we know that you know, Maine South was sanctioned the whole
year of wins and are on probation right now in this school year, but
we don't really know who was involved based on contradictory information that we've got,
we don't really know, you know, who knew what or anything like that.
So there are a lot of questions, you know, still after this
process, and I know that the school district, in the IHS they both
kind of agreed that you know, personal information is important to keep up and
I would agree with that. I don't think you should, you know,
give up kids names or families names or anything like that. But even when
it came time to like find cooperation of whether this was only a Main South
football program, was this program in Maine West volleyball or like you know,
Maine East, like, it was hard to even pinpoint that kind of stuff,
let alone to know, you know, was this one kid on the
main South football team or was it more than one kid? And I think
that's kind of how this reporting process went, where you know, we found
the information and the Freedom of Information Act and try to build off of the
information that we had. But as we continue to you know, do multiple
rounds of interviews, we tried to you know, figure out what was going
on, there was just a lot of you know, we can't release that,
we can't say that it's a confidential information. And I understand, you
know, wanting to protect families and wanting to protect kids. It's obviously very
important, but at the same time, as a public school district, in
the public school I think people have a right to know, you know,
what happened here and what is going on. And I don't think, you
know, half a year later we truly know what really happened other than like
some stuff that we recovered discovered along the way. Yeah. Well so Michael,
let's first let's talk about what we do know. And now going back
through everything that was discussed or through those emails, I think we you kind
of alluded to it. There is we were I guess we can't say with
one hundred percent surname, but what the district is saying, if this is
a a district wide problem, right, we butt right up against Chicago,
always going to be an issue. But what we were able to narrow down
through everything that we found is we're looking at, you know, no other
sports program within the main the main school district that includes Maine East and Maine
West reported and had to forfeit any game because of ineligible players as far as
we can tell, right, it is one football team, the main South
football team is the only program that forfeited games, correct, Yeah, I
mean when we asked the question, you know, whether other programs were involved
with us, the response from the district was, you know, we would
self report if there were you know, any problems or anything like that with
other programs. And which is which is exactly what they did to the IHSA
to begin with. When it came to the football team, they self reported,
and then the ISSA released its statement, right but instead of you know,
the natural follow up question is, you know, is that you know,
so that's the only program, and then they just repeated with saying we
would self report instead of saying, you know, yes, that's the only
one. But then we were able to confirm with Craig Anderson, the IHSA
board president at that you know, that they were the only ones to self
report. So this is only a Main South you know, football issue.
And during the reporting process, you you know, asked me to include this,
and I thought this was interesting. You know, there there are six
thousand, you know, one hundred and seventy kids among the three schools.
Maine South offers twenty nine, you know, ishs a sanctioned sports. Main
West offers twenty seven and Main East offers twenty five. So it's just interesting
that, you know, you've got all these kids, you got all these
kids allegedly from Chicago trying to get into your school district. But it doesn't
seem like this is really an issue that's happening with other sports. It's not
a boy soccer issue. It's not a you know, boys or girls volleyball
or basketball issue. This seems to be a one particular school or happening in
one particular program. So those are just interesting numbers to look at that out
of all the school, out of all the students in the three high schools,
out of all the sports, main cell football just happened to be the
only one that had you know, x amount of kids who are involved in
this you know incident. Yeah, and then you know, you look at
other inconsistencies from the school district when asked about, well, how did you
find out and it talks about they talk about it, well, we hired
a residency investigator. But the kids that ultimately were suspended came from or the
reason that we're reported not the kids suspended. I should clarify that they weren't
suspended, but the the kids that were from outside the district were identified from
a anonymous tip, correct, right, Yeah, that was the other thing
trying to figure out, you know, get any sort of consistency for this
story. But yeah, it turned out that the district you know, hired
in residency and thatstigator in October twenty twenty two, who identified you know,
football players for resident and residency investigations, but then the district said the students
who ultimately were found to be non residents, however, came as a result
of a you know, anonymous tips. So it's just, you know,
finding that inconsistency throughout this story is kind of what the story ended up becoming,
because you just find, you know, the inconsistencies of like did the
coaching staff know? You find inconsistencies of how many you know, how did
you discover these kids? It's just so much inconsistency where you know, the
story at the beginning probably would have been like, you know, here we're
looking at this, this is what the situation was, this is what happened,
and then it turns into this story of like, well, no one
knows exactly what happened, or no one wants to say exactly what happened and
who knew And unlike the Nenaghborville Central story from a few years ago, where
Nighberville Central launched a full investigation with an outside firm, where you know,
we were able to look through all of that and kind of get a real
good feel for what happened. There. We still the other part of it,
We still don't exactly know who knew what, you know, looking through
the main the district's response is that they're not aware of anyone being involved.
But as you go, if you go to Friday Night Drive dot com,
and I encourage you, it's a great story, but it's also it's a
really informative story, and it's an important story. You know. The district
said, well, we don't believe that anyone was involved, and then the
IHSA executive director, Craig Anderson, and on the record interview with you,
says that it's his belief, you know, it's his understanding, I should
say, his understanding that there was at least some level of knowledge correct and
then then kind of take it from there. What happened from there? Michael,
Well, then you know, you hear to two things. You want
to get clarification, obviously as a reporter, so I reached out to the
district, and the district, you know, stuck with their you know,
what they originally had said. And then I got a call from Craig Anderson
saying that even though he recognized that we had an on the record conversation,
the information that he gave me was based off of suspicions off and off the
record conversation. So if that's hard to keep up with, I was kind
of confused too at the time when I got the phone Calleges, trying to
figure out, you know, what is going on over here, like what
actually happened. But yeah, I mean even something like that, even the
basic question of did coaches know what was going on, we don't have a
clear answer to because of interactions like this, Like we just don't know whether
the coaches did know because at first there's the district is saying this, and
IHSA is Craig Anderson. In my first interview with him, he said,
well, you know, we they got it rid of wins for an entire
season and they put the program on probation for one year. That is a
result of coaches knowing. But then all of a sudden, it's not a
result of coaches knowing and is just using an ineligible player. So that's just
that's just the layer of what this reporting process has kind of been like,
where you you're just trying to find any sort of answers to basic questions and
you're not really getting them, or you're getting the I don't know if excuse
is the right word, but you're just getting the reasoning of, well,
it's personal information. We don't want to divulge personal information where I feel like
if you wanted to be honest with the public, you could find a way
without saying x X did this, where you can just say two or three
people did this, or two or four families were involved with us, or
X amount of coaches new or anything like that. So I think, yeah,
why we have so many questions there and everyone refuses to be honest about
this story for some reason. Well, there's two layers. There's the you're
dealing with young most of the time underage kids. That's so that part of
it, and I understand that, and we're really careful in our reporting process,
Like the goal of this is not to throw teenagers under the bus,
So that's that's part of it. The other part of it is a personnel
issue with the school. They have to worry about, well, any kind
of liability when it comes to whatever they say about people that work for them.
I understand that part of it. But there's got to be some middle
ground, right in terms of if we this and sus I'd like to bring
you in on the conversation at this point, because like, this isn't a
new thing, it's just becoming a more it's it's becoming a more widespread issue,
but it's also becoming a much more difficult thing to police because of I
mean, it's just how society is right now, right, It's it's it's
it's just it's much more difficult to police. Sus. I guess my question
is just, you know, you've been around doing this a long time.
You've seen these types of things come and go. You know, how do
you feel having read Michael's piece about you know, where things stand with Main
South. You know, my kind of my immediate reaction to this is that,
you know, we have these conversations about things like this, and it
almost seems like inevitably we get into the whole what aboutism argument with situations like
this Main this has happened at Maine South, and then you know, tractors,
people that are supporting Maine South and what they're doing, or you know
what, you know, what the program has done in the past, or
things like that. It all comes down to, oh, well, what
about these guys. These guys are doing this too, These guys are doing
that too, and it's more of a complicated situation to you know, whether
schools are self reporting or anonymous tipsters or all these other things. It just
feels like it's just this really slippery slope that you get into when you're talking
about well, you know, who knew, who didn't know and all this
other stuff, because everybody wants to get into that argument of okay, so
yeah, Maine South is doing this, but what about that school that you
know everybody knows that they're doing it. And now it also becomes a more
layered and complicated issue because what's an infraction? Like can you know two people,
you know, two parents of a kid at a showcase event talk about,
hey, you know what school might what school my kid might attend?
What are the positives? What are the negatives? I mean, what is
there something wrong? Is there something inherently wrong with that? Can a coach
that may be standing around say hey, you know, we've got this in
our program and a lot of people will say no, that's not okay.
But it's happening all over the place. So it's just there's so many roads
that this can go down in regards to what is a legal contact issue and
what isn't And now another layer to this is social media, Like you have
you have kids working things out amongst themselves and in some cases parents working things
out amongst themselves to talk about, Hey, you know what, what's the
benefits of this program, what's the benefits of that program? And you can't
stop people from having those conversations. And there's nothing, in my opinion,
there's very little wrong with those conversations being had. So it's a really difficult
thing to police. And if you have if you have people that are on
opposite sides of the spectrum on what's legal and what isn't legal, then you
really get into some hairy situations. I mean, I'm one of those people
that reads the you know, the board minutes from the IHSA on a monthly
basis, and if you get into the brass tacks to that, there are
fifteen to twenty residency issues rule on in I S A minu. It's almost
every every month in regards to is this uh illegal transfer? Is this not
a llegal transfer? You know, residency issues. There are all these things
that come into play at all levels, a lot of different programs and a
lot of people. When you see this happening, and that when schools inevitably
get punished, they're like a lot A lot of response is a lot of
schools are doing this. Why are you singling out AX school. Well,
the first thing about that is a lot of people don't realize is the IHSA
does not have an army of people that are looking into these issues. It's
just it's a very small group of people that generally work at the ISSA to
begin with, and they've also got a lot of other things to go through
on a you know, operational basis, So it's very reliant on honesty.
So reporting, I mean, it's it's not like someone's calling down to the
bat phone and saying, hey, there's you know, there's three kids out
of district in X school, go look into it. That's not the way
these things work. So it's really kind of based on schools being you know,
upfront about what happens, and if they're not upfront, h and they
you know, try to get themselves embroiled a little bit deeper in some of
these situations. I'm of the opinion that the punishment should be pretty severe and
you can argue till next you know, the next millennium whether or not this
penalty was severe enough for this crime or this penalty you know what they did,
but you know, I don't know if we can ever answer that because
we don't actually know entirely what happened here. So I would like whatever happens
to be a pretty severe deterrent to say, hey, this is what happens
if you do this. I kind of in my heart of hearts, you
know, if I knew all the details to it, which I don't.
We got closer here, but I'm always of the opinion that if you get
caught doing something like this with knowledge from the people involved, then the punishment
should be pretty pretty strong, because I mean, the whole system is based
on being honest and upfront because we just can't do anything otherwise. And I
want to say that you make sure you go over to Friday Night Drive dot
com and read the full story because Dave in Sarah, the head longtime head
coach over at Main South, did meet with district officials and he was given
three conditions to keep his job. Michael, you go through those in the
story. And I want to wrap this up so we don't get too long
on this topic. Make sure, like I said, go over and read
the full story. You know, from our perspective, from Friday Night Drive
perspective. The thing that's frustrating from you know, like I said, from
our perspective is we're not trying to it's not looking to be like gatcha journalism,
right, it's knowing that this is an issue that faces the high school
football community and looking to be able to get this out into the open a
little more, because like, that's what this stuff is like, it's it's
now getting to the point where these are becoming more open and they're becoming bigger,
you know, like Main's out with multiple kids, napro visut with multiple
kids. Like it's to fix it, there has to be some level of
accountability and transparency, and you're not seeing that. And that's what's frustrating at
the end of the day, because yes, you kind of said there,
it's it shouldn't be this code of silence. Well so and so is cheating,
So it's okay, it's okay for us to do it and look the
other way, knowing that there's kids that may not be within district. Well,
the overwhelming initial response when this happened I felt was, eh, like
I mean there was kind of a reaction to to what had happened, what
the punishment was, and it just was kind of like that was it.
It was like the reaction was, well, you know, they got caught.
I mean, what does it really mean that they had to forfeit these
games? Five years down the line, is anyone going to remember other than
nerds like me that are looking in the record book that Mainstou's record that season
was zero to twelve. No one's going to remember that, I mean ultimately.
But then, I mean, what what would be a punishment that opens
people's eyes like in regards to that. So I don't know the answer to
that. So and what would be a fair punishment in the I mean,
yeah, you could, you could put down sanctions that would be like,
oh geez, like you could ban them from a playoff appearance for two years
or whatever. I mean, I don't know that would I don't know if
that Like, I'm not saying that That's what I'm advocating for or that's what
the answer is. I'm just saying that, I don't know. The basic
reaction to this was doesn't really mean anything. That wouldn't really be a big
deterrent to someone else looking at what happened here and says, well, maybe
we might have done something like this in the past. I don't think.
I don't think what happened here is going to be like, oh geez,
we can't we can't even dip our toe in that water. We don't want
that to happen to us. Yeah, I feel like I also struggle with
when it comes to penalties with this, where it's kind of like most of
these things are you know, adults are doing like the kids, right,
you know, I don't know if it's fair to blame kids, you know,
three or you know, the next couple of sophomores or freshmen because they
had nothing to do with Like, I don't know if it's those kids,
because most of the time, like it's adults who are talking to adults trying
to figure out, well, you know, how can we win this football
game in high school and all that kind of stuff, like and that's like,
what are we doing here? Like this is a kid's game. It's
supposed to be the kid at the end of the day. Listen, we
all love high school football and the competitiveness, but like, at the end
of the day, it is high school football. Your number one job is
not to win football games. And there are multiple resents that allowing these practices
set a bad example for for the kids. And I feel like I'm turning
into a Simpsons episode. Will someone please think of the children here? But
you know, that's what the educational system is supposed to be about. And
I have a problem when there's a lack of accountability at the end of the
day when it comes to this. And I'm gonna leave it at that unless
you guys have any other thoughts you want to add on there now, all
right, so let's let's Michael, Let's let's talk about the Catholic League for
a few minutes before we let you go and get Joe Stevenson on to talk
about the Mckinnery County and Fox Valley Conference. We're now two thirds of the
way through the regular season. We're heading into week seven here, this is
a playoff push. What are you focused on this weekend? I am loving
the CCL Blue c c L E SEC Orange crossover that we have this weekend.
There are gonna be a lot of good games. I'm I'm going to
be covering the Leo Ice Catholic game, which I'm very curious to see how
that game goes. But you've got a lot of fun games this weekend.
You've got Fenwick and Mount Carmel, you got Saint Rita taking on Saint Francis,
and then you got Brother Rice and Nazareth. So that crossover, you
know, I feel like most people will be like, well, the Blue
and Green crossover is probably the best, But based on what we've seen so
far this season, that Blue and Orange crossover that's going to take place over
this weekend is really interesting and it's going to have a lot of fun matchups.
I'm really curious to see whether any of those Orange teams are able to
you know, pull off I guess, upset upset a Blue team and pick
up a win this weekend. I'm gonna making narrow it down. What's your
top matchup that you're looking forward to. I I am very curious to see
what Loyola and Icy Catholic is this weekend, mostly because I know maybe Marisk
you know, has some injuries and isn't playing too It's best ability this year,
you know, at one and five, but you know, Icy Catholic
was able to be bad team, and Icy Catholic has thirty three kids on
its roster. Loyola has around one hundred, if not more. So I'm
very curious to see. I was talking to Loyola coach Bo Deshuro this week
and he was like, we're well aware that you know, they might have
thirty three kids, but there's like kids are like power five kids, Like
their skilled players are great, Their offensive and defensive line are really strong.
So I'm very curious to see whether, you know, Icy Catholic can hang
with Loyola. And I'm very curious to see whether Loyola's depth where their second
and third string players you know, can come in and play like first stringers,
where Icy Catholic is having to play both guys, you know, both
ways. So I'm really curious to see how that mad goes and whether I
see Catholic can break through and be one of the teams this year that actually
puts up a lot of points on the defense for Loyal of that has been
pretty elite this year. All right, Well, we're wrapping up our visit
with Michael duo Jack, who covers the Chicago Catholic League for Friday Night Drive.
You can follow him on Twitter at m duo Jack ninety four He's also
on Instagram, Instagram and thread. Michael, what is you know the final
third of the regular season here? I guess what's the biggest question you still
have left that you're trying to figure out about, you know, maybe a
particular team or player. The first part part of that question is I cannot
wait for that loyal A Mount Carmel game. I just can't. I am
very curious to see what happens there that once I saw the scores from the
opening weekend, I was like, they need I am very curious to see
what happens there. But just looking at it, I'm very curious to see,
you know what, teams that you know, maybe haven't had this success
recently, how are they able to kind of go into the final third here?
Where you know, Saint Lawrence and Montini both come to mind, where
you know now they are both playoff teams, But how are they able to
do the last third of the season. Are they able to kind of get
their seeds up as Juliet Kathlick and a Saint Ignacious? Are they able to
you know, obviously pick up those last couple wins to qualify for the Postseason's
brother Rice able to do that. So there are a lot of fun matchups
as we're heading into the final stretch here of you know, this mega conference
is insane and really, you know, you get your losses here pretty quickly.
But I'm really curious to see whether, you know, are there any
talented teams that you know, if they're in a different conference, they would
have probably made the playoffs, but because they played in the CCL es CEC,
they're probably not going to play at Number one is probably Nazareth. Is
Nazareth is going to be able to pull this one off and up what they
did last year. And you know, after I know and four started the
season somehow make the playoffs here. All right, Well, thank you Michael
for joining us this more and one more time. Everyone. You can follow
Michael on Twitter at m Dwojack ninety four. We'll be right back after a
quick commercial break. We're gonna have Joe Stevenson on to talk about the latest
news out of McHenry County. 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 him your support. Welcome back into the
Friday Night Drive podcast and you can, of course make sure you subscribe but
to our podcast. You can get it on Apple, iTunes, anywhere,
Spotify, you get your podcasts nowadays. And we're we're gonna go ahead and
bring in Joe Stevenson, who covers everything in McHenry County for Friday Night Drive.
Joe, how's it going, sir? It's great, going great.
You got to see a good one. You got to see a good one
last Friday night between Mary and Central and Hope. Hope pulled out a twenty
eight to twenty six win. Was What were your takeaways from that one?
Well, yeah, it was a really good game, and uh and Hope
is a very good one a football team, and and uh but I from
Marion's Central's sake, I hope that that loss is not too costly. That's
I felt like it was one. Uh And and like I say, Hope
was very good. And I don't mean this is no disrespect at all the
whole, but I think that's one that kind of got away from Mary and
maryon definitely had some chances there to win that game. And you know,
the Hurricanes have a lot of work to do here in the last three weeks
to get two more victories and get into the two A playoffs, you know,
And I say that, and you know, Marion still has a chance
to win the conference too. If if Marion wins out, it would be
five and one and and then share the conference title with Aurora Christian, which
it plays Friday night. But yeah, Marion had had some chances. The
one chance that I keep going thinking back to in the second quarter, third
and goal on the three, snap goes over Cale mcphinney's head. He recovers
it on the twenty five. It went all that all that way back and
and I mean, gosh, you know, if you got two shots at
the three, you figure you're gonna score, and and it's and it winds
up as it's a two. They get nothing out of it, and then
it winds up as a two point game. So you know, Marion had
some chances, but it was a it was a really good game. Moving
on, Morris and Richmond Burden met last week, and Morris really controlled it
from the beginning to or SU's Joe, excuse me, were you surprised by
the margin in that one a little bit. Yeah, you know, I
kind of thought maybe Morris was a better team than the one I saw last
year when Richmond kind of handed it to them, to them pretty well thirty
one to seven, And yeah, this one kind of just looked like a
reverse of that. All right, Joe, You've got a doubleheader this week.
What you're looking at Friday and Saturday? I do. I think I
got a couple of pretty good ones. I have Jacobs at Crystal Lake Central.
Central's one four in a row and is looking pretty good right now.
And then on Saturday a really fun game two five and one teams Huntley at
Carry Grove. That's Carry Grove's homecoming. They always play on play that one
on a Saturday. And so, yeah, I got a couple of good
ones I think to look forward to. Chris Lake Central is the team that
I was really looking at as being strong for the season, had that rough
start with close losses to Huntley and Carry Grove, and then has won four
in a row and actually has a ten quarter scoreless streak going into this game.
But it gets a little tougher now because you know the competition the next
couple of weeks for the Tigers is going to be really good with Jacobs and
next week Prairie Ridge. Yeah, we're gonna find out the next couple week
what exactly the Tigers are made of. Joe. Yeah, And that that
offense has been has been playing really well on the defense, like I say,
you know, ten quarters in a row without giving up a point is
has been excellent, and so that they'll need to keep that up, you
know Saturday, you know, both of those teams. What to me,
when I look at the big picture on Saturday, what that game means is
whoever wins that game still has a shot at at at a share of the
title. I think because you know, if Crystal Lack Central were to to
beat Prairie Ridge next week, you know, then whoever else has one loss
could could still get a share of the title. And I you know,
I think I think that that Central Prairie Ridge game should be a lot of
fun next week. Prairi Ridge has played has played excellent on both sides.
But you know, the thing about the thing that strikes me that game is
the Wolves haven't seen a team that throws the ball as well as does all
Right, make sure you followed Joe on Twitter at n w H underscore Joe
Prepson. Of course, you can find all of joe work, all of
Joe's work at Friday Night Drive dot com and at end of our Northwest Herald
dot com. Joe, before we let you go, you're looking forward to
some good fall weather. You're gonna rock the shorts this weekend. Still,
the streak's gonna end tomorrow night. I'm afraid, I I it's I'm kind
of sad, but you know I can't complain. You know, six weeks
of the football season shorts. Uh, yeah, I won't complain about that.
I think I might. I think it'll end Friday, but you know,
Saturday, with the sun out, I might have to bust him back
out. I'm sorry. All right, Well, thanks for jonah us Joe.
Now everyone stick with us. We're gonna take a quick commercial break.
We'll come back Susan and I to give you the best games to watch here
this weekend. This is State Representative Steve Reich, and I'm happy to answer
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 to the Friday Night Drive
podcast. Make sure you tune in on Friday evening for week seven of Live
with Friday Night Drives. Steve Susie and Jake Barlson will be joining you from
eight to eleven PM. Suso to be sticking with you after that for Live
with Friday Night Drive After Dark, where he kind of starts taking his first
look at the playoff picture and how the week is shaping up to impact that.
Sus We got an interesting slate here last week was I mean, maybe
the best slate of games we've had all year. I'd say this is a
smaller, smaller grouping of what I would call elite games. But you know,
these are the weeks that sometimes they start a little quiet, at least
you expect them to be quiet, and then at the end of the night
you're sitting there with your hair on fire. Well, I think one of
the more interesting things that I kind of unearthed when I was looking at this
week's games of schedules. You know, I agree there there aren't a lot
of games that like you're setting off the alarm bells and going, boy,
that's going to be you know, an eye Popper right there. But the
one thing that really stood out to me is is right now, we've got
two hundred and five teams in the state of Illinois that are above five hundred,
eighty six of them this week are playing another team that is above five
hundred. That's an extraordinarily high percentage. So while it doesn't look like,
you know, we have a lot of we have no six and oh games
against another six and oh. There's not a single one in the entire state
this week, which is really unique. But what we do have is a
lot of games that I think are going to separate a team from upper tier
to kind of middle tier. You got a five and one and a four
and two playing one another, a four and two and another four and two
playing one another where the winner of that game kind of moves into the you
know, the upper group, while the loser drops down into that middle group.
And there are just a whole bunch of those types of games. They're
not flashy, and they don't really look like you know that you know,
they're gonna be games that cause a lot of theatrics and excitement, but what
they do a lot of in this situation is really shape who's going to be
in the playoff field in three weeks because some of those teams that lose those
games are getting into real precarious situations, and then the ones that win it
have either locked in a playoff spot or have come really really close to doing
so. And that's, you know, we start to get a lot more
clarity from a week like this than we would say when we've got twenty five
really big, you know, big loud games and a whole bunch of games
that you know, maybe don't mean all that much. So sometimes this this
kind of week can be more defining than a week like we had last week.
We already talk Huntley Kerry Grove that Saturday matin a with Joe Stevenson.
So let's let's you know, the first game that popped out to me.
I love when Wilmington and Cole City played later in the year, when these
two teams really have kind of fine tuned what they are for that season,
we get a match up here at five and one. They both lost their
season openers, and I'll be kind of honest, so since then I I
kind of forgot about them, And now here they sit here, sitting at
five and one, and I'm like, oh man, that's a matchup I'd
like to see this week. Yeah, you know, longtime rivals. It's
one of those games that you know, anybody who's played in that series will
still tell you about, you know, how their game went. They're probably
still sore, they're still so yeah okay, twenty or thirty years ago that
they tell you all the details and break it all down for you. It's
it means a lot to both of those communities. They're not separated by very
far on the map. You can get easily get from one to the other
in about ten minutes. That's, you know, really what it comes down
to. Both these community know each other really well. Both the programs have
a lot of respect for one another, and they play the football game that
way. It will be I would guestimate that this will be one of the
faster games played in Week six. Neither one of the two teams are all
that interested in moving the ball through the air stopping the clock. They will
try to run it as much as they both can so you know, and
both have really potent ground games. Close city with Landon Benson, Wilmington,
Kyle Ferrell. I mean, they're very talented running football teams that play hard
nosed defense on both sides. It's been that way. I mean, I
did a little historical look up. Somebody was somebody was asking me about the
series last night. The series started in nineteen seventy eight. They've pretty much
played annually every year since, and you can count on one hand the amount
of times that these games were high scoring, wide gap between the two of
them. These games are what they are. It'll probably be a twenty one
to fourteen game or something along those lines when the dust clears after Friday night.
Yeah, absolutely agree. All right, so so let's go over.
Let's talk to Saint Rita, which goes to Whedon Saint Francis. This week,
we in Saint Francis would back to back come from behind wins. We
weren't sure how the Spartane would handle the Catholic League. Coming off a nice
win obviously last week against Icy Catholic. Do you think they're gonna they can
do it again here against Saint Rita. You know you asked me this question
a couple of weeks ago. I would have said, I don't like their
odds, but they have certainly shown a propensity to hang in there in these
games. When I looked at wheat in Saint Francis's schedule at the beginning of
the year, I was like, man, that is probably simply put too
tough on paper for them to get where they need to go. But they're
in much better shape now. They've been highly competitive and pulled off wins in
the last couple of weeks when on paper it looked like they might have trouble
doing so. So I'm done discounting them and their possibilities. For them.
I will give them. I think there's still the underdog in this game,
but I will give them a puncher's chance to figure out a way to win
this game. Because if you would have put me on the spot the last
two weeks, I don't I would have picked against them in both of those
games. So you know, they they really have shown a knack for figuring
out how to get things done in the league. Credit to them. They
they should be. They'll be all right either way. I think after this
game, you know, if it doesn't go their way, I still think
they're going to find their way to the playoffs, which I wasn't so sure
of. You know, as recently as two or three weeks ago, you
know, teams that we weren't sure would be in the playoffs that are way
you know, exceeding expectations. Bradley Bourbone at Lincoln Way West, both of
these teams at five and one, you know, I thought these were both
that had a chance to maybe get to that five win mark and go,
you know, five and four sneak into the back of the playoffs. But
you're talking to team there now, you know, with the potential at the
end of the day to be seven eight win teams. Yeah, it's it's
really been interesting to see both of the past that these two teams have taken.
You know, Bradley's loan losses to Lincoln Way East, I mean you
can't you can't discredit him for that. Almost no one seems to find a
way to get past Lincoln Way East in the regular season, and Bradley has
done some really nice things against some of the upper echelon teams in this league.
So they've set themselves up for an interesting game here with Lincoln Way West.
That to be honest, back in Week three when they lost, they
lost cole crafton They're expected starting quarterback for the remainder of the season. I
didn't really know how they would respond to that, and it seems like,
you know, I don't want to say they neat crafton because I'm sure they'd
like to have him, but they have made a seamless transition to the backup
Chase Helstitch and and he's done a really nice job of guiding this offense.
They're playing really good defense. You know, if you would have told me
Lincoln Way West would be five and one at this stage after what they've gone
through, I would have looked at you funny. But they have really done
a nice job of doing what they do and not getting kind of caught up
and trying to, you know, match what the other team is throwing at
them. You know, that win over Lincolnway Central early in the year a
good indicator of this team being able to just kind of, you know,
just plow forward and get the job done with whatever personnel that they have.
They've done a really nice job this season. Definitely, if I had to
make a list of teams that I have been really surprised by this year,
Lincoln Way West would be on it. I want to hit the Glenbard West
aw York game. This feels like to me, SEUs I've this is this
is upset city coming in here. And I'm not I'm not exactly calling the
upset, but I feel like this is a major trap game for York.
York is coming off a big win over Donners Grove North. Uh to get
to six and oh they have Lions next week, another tough matchup. Glenbard
West getting healthier, has now won three straight here. Uh, they go
to York. Listen, the Dukes are the favorite. I just I'm getting
a vibe. You know, I can see that. I mean, this
is definitely a complete role reversal from what we're used to in this series.
It has been kind of uh, you know, it has been for years
prior to last year, of course, where Glenbard West was the was the
top dog, and York was trying to nip at their heels and maybe figure
out a way to pick off a win in that series. They'd get close,
they'd get denied. And now, you know, now the now things
have changed. I mean, now York is York is in that position,
and you know, it's funny to see some times how teams respond to you
know, that situation. Now they're York is no longer the uh, you
know, the little underdog trying to snap snap away at Glenbard West and get
you know, get a little bit of respect. Now they're the team that
is in that role. So I can see what you're saying. I would
be surprised if Glenbard West won the game, but not not stunned, I'll
put it that way. I wouldn't I wouldn't fall off my chair if that
happened. But I still think York is the favorite here and and their body
of work this year shows that they they are not too prone to taking their
eye off the ball, if you will. They they've seem pretty laser focused
when they've when they've run into these opponents that are of quality. Absolutely all
right, zeus uh before we get out of here, uh, I want
a little intel on this Kenwood versus Morgan Park match up here. An interesting
intriguing game in Chicago Public League. Yeah, it's It's one of those games
where you look at kind of the Public League schedule in general this year.
I think these are the two most prominent teams in the Public League this season.
Kenwood has a lot of that flashy division one type of talent that you
know, draws a lot of attention, but there's always been questions about whether
or not they can put it all together in games like this. Morgan Park
over the last three to four years has become kind of that quiet assassin in
the Public League. They they are going into games, you know, with
people expect good things from them. But this is a really solid, deep
football team led by Tyshawn Griffin. You know, he's going to Illinois.
He's just kind of a utility knife does everything for the Mustangs. But it's
it's a fun game in the sense that you know, these two programs are
trying to prove that they're capable of doing damage outside of the Public League.
Morgan Park gave Mount Carmel a pretty good game in the non conference schedule.
Ken Woods scheduled up as well, didn't have any success in terms of the
win column, lost pretty handily to Lincoln Way East. So both of these
two teams are probably trying to focus on what happens a little bit farther down
the line in the postseason. But definitely this is a battle for Chicago Public
League supremacy this year. These are the two teams that I think are the
best of the bunch for them. You can follow seuss on Twitter at the
SEUs. You can find myself on Twitter at Kyle Neighbors. You can also
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also on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to search for Friday Night Drive.
Also make sure you go to Friday Nightdrive dot com for seus's updated playoff projection,
our power rankings, all of our content throughout the week. SEUs Before
we get out of here, give us some final thoughts that we head into
week seven. You know, Week seven, we were talking about it before.
It just looks like a solid week, and I think we're gonna find
out a lot of things about maybe the second tier of teams below the you
know, the top twenty five teams that we seem to be talking about all
the time. There might be an opportunity for some of those teams to pick
up a statement winner to this weekend where you have, you know, a
team that you're not really talking about that much kind of raises your eyebrow with
one of the results. So there are a lot of games that give that
opportunity, and I'm interested to see how it all shakes out. All right,
everyone, make sure you tune in Friday Night from eight to eleven PM
for Live with Lyve with Friday Night Drive, and then stick around to join
Steve Susie afterward for Live with Friday Night Drive after dark. We're gonna get
out of here though, everyone enjoy a good week in high school football.
Will be back with you next week to wrap up Week seven. Schwiker Gannison,
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