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S I N dot com. What's up everyone, and welcome into the Friday
Night Drive Podcast. I am Kyle Naghbors along with Steve Seussi. We are
here live on YouTube and Facebook on Monday morning, October thirtieth. We're here
to recap the first round SEUs. You've got to see a lot of football
this week in my man. Yeah, I was finally able to kind of
get out and get back to my old stomping grounds. Are running around on
sidelines and got a little soggy. There's quite a bit of water on Friday
night in at Peoria Juliet Catholic games. So finally around the third or fourth
quarter I started to dry out a little bit, and Saturday I was able
to go over and see Evidence and Morton and then a not so quick jaunt
up a couple of interstates and I was able to catch a second half of
the Saint Charles North Bradley bourbon A game, which is right was right in
my backyard, so, you know, able to catch quite a bit of
football this weekend. And Ben in the studio for the last six weeks or
so, so I haven't been able to kind of get out and see it
live, and it was definitely nice to get back out there. Yeah,
it was. It was great to be out on the sidelines myself. I
was out there on Saturday afternoon, taken in Nazareth and Prairie Ridge. Of
course, a big game on Saturday, we'll get into that. Of course.
Go to Friday Night Drive dot com. We have a ton of content
up there right now from over the weekend. We dropped what we learned in
the first round from SEUs this morning. We'll have everything coming your way this
week for the second round. You can follow us on Twitter at f and
Driver. Also on Facebook and Instagram if you search for Friday Night Driver.
Also on TikTok as well. You can follow myself on Twitter at Kyle Neighbors.
You can follow sus on Twitter at the SEUs. Of course, during
the postseason, we do this live twice a week on Mondays and Mondays and
Thursday mornings at eleven am. You can join us live on YouTube and Facebook.
Give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. We really do
appreciate it. That helps other people find the show, and you can leave
us questions, comments. And I already see a few people in the chat
here, starting with go Naz from Mark and you know, sus, I
think that's probably, you know, the most logical place to start here when
we look at the first round, we we I mean, at a minimum,
you know, this game probably should have been played in the corner files,
right, you know, I think everyone would agree with that. It
was an unfortunate way that the bracket broke down, but it is what it
is, you know. And Prairie Ridge came into the game. You know,
I was over there, Alex Kentucky was over there, Joe Stevenson,
all three of us actually taken in that game on Saturday afternoon, and Joe,
you know, made sure to point out at one point that Prairie Ridge
had only had three turnovers all season long. They had three in that game,
lost three fumbles. It's hard to win a football game against a team
like Naz when you have three turnovers, Yeah, I mean the margins there
were slim. You know, looking at it on paper, this is so
far from being what you would expect from a two fifteen game in a bracket
situation. It just I mean logically when you looked at it on paper.
You know, when I went through my first round picks and I picked Prairie
Ridge to win the game. But if I had to make a list of
the five to ten games in the first round that I wrestled with the most,
that game definitely would have been on either of those lists. I struggled
with it. I didn't really know which way to go, and when I
heard through the grapevine, I was following along on Twitter, but you know,
the games kind of coincided with where it was pivotal in my game as
well, so I wasn't watching it minute to minute down the stretch. Somebody
messaged me and all the message said was whoe nas And I was like,
well, I'm assuming that meant nas won. But my reaction, my reaction
to it wasn't really surprise, Like I wasn't like, I wasn't forwored by
the fact that Nasad won the game. So that kind of typifies the way
that I kind of felt about going in the game. Whoever, you know,
it was gonna be those little margins and turnovers in a situation like that
can be the decider and make the difference in a small margin game like that.
Yeah, they Prairie Ridge had a fumble deep and Nast territory in first
half that they lost. They also had another drive stopped in Prairie or in
Nazareth territory, and then so it tied fourteen to fourteen at half. Prairie
Ridge comes out and has another fumble in Nazareth territory. Nas goes down and
scores. You know, at that point it really felt like Prairie Ridge had
a lot of work to do to get back in that game, and then
just never never could quite get back over the hump. I want to say
the first time I really in a while have done in chance to see Logan
Malichuk up close, kick and sling it. He was terrific in the game.
Several key throws for touchdowns. He also had a terrific touchdown run.
Very very impressed with him. I see Mark down here as well. Comment
in Gabe Kominsky Beasts, Yeah, gab Kominsky. Very impressive. That's a
nasty team that's gonna be all very very difficult out in the five A playoffs.
Sers Yeah, I'm really hoping that I get another chance to see them
live because I have to go all the way back to Week one to get
my frame of reference for them. And you know, I saw what you
saw in Logan Malachuck in very small bursts in that game that lost to Kanka
Key. He was trying a lot of low percentage throws that I think he
was accustomed to completing, and kant Key secondary did a pretty nice job with
him. Eventually had to just kind of give up and use his feet to
move the football, and he did that very effectively. And then with Kaminski,
Kaminsky, I don't want to say he got locked up in that game,
but kin he has a Division one tackle prospect who's committed to Georgia,
and he kind of slowed Kaminski down a little bit. So I didn't see
either of those two guys in there with their best foot forward. So I'm
hoping maybe I get a chance to see them in a further round to you
know, to fully see their skills on display. Alex checking in this morning
says, Hello, gentlemen, how about the bb BBCHS boiler Makers. Yeah,
soush. You got to go over there and see that game, he
said, You saw the second half the win for the boiler Makers over Saint
Charles North. What were your takeaway from that? Well, when I got
there, it was fourteen to seven. Bradley and I had been listening to
the game on the radio on my way up to go see it, and
it seemed like it was a fairly evenly matched game between you know, two
teams there. One I showed up, and I don't know, maybe I
can take some credit for this. I showed up. The boiler Makers just
flipped the switch. I mean, an excellent game from Ethan Cole at the
quarterback position. Not really known that much as of running type of quarterback,
more of a thrower. But apparently Bradley saw something in the in the you
know, scouting report of what they they could use him as a runner,
and they did. He broke off like a fifty yard run that I just
did not see as part of his arsenal. I think he's a very good
quarterback, but yeah, you know, but I just didn't see him as
being kind of a dual threat type of guy, but he showed some moves.
I mean I was really surprised by that. And this Bradley defense is
pretty good. I mean, I don't know if it's necessarily got the credit
that it deserves, but it can make some plays. And they really gave
Ethan Plumb a hard time. He couldn't find He really never found a groove
while I was there, and maybe it was something to do with the conditions,
but both teams had to play in it. I mean it was a
steady drizzle, light rain almost the entire second half, but definitely an impressive
performance for the Boiler Makers, especially even Cole. Yeah, Bradley's gonna get
a second round. Man here with normal community suits. You know, I
haven't seen this Bradley team play. Of course, you and I used to
see them play a lot back in the day at our old job, and
I think back to I'm gonna get the year on maybe twenty fourteen, the
year that Bradley made it to the state semi finals against Libertyville. That was
a really, really good Bradley bourbon. A team that has had a good
defense with explosive on offense, can you give me a little like frame of
context, like after seeing them against Saint Charles North, Like how good comparatively?
Like is this a team that you think could be a quarterfinal or semi
final team. I mean, I think they have a pretty tall task in
this game in the second round against a normal Community team that is kind of
flying under the radar because they don't come from an area of the state that
typically produces seven A eight A powerhouses. But they're very interesting offensively. They
have a lot of speed on the outside that they can utilize. Yeah,
and alex Is mentioned a j Mancia in the middle of that Bradley defense.
He's kind of the core there for them. I think what it comes down
to is, you know, when they play someone like normal Community, I
mean, will they be able to match up in type in type of a
shootout game that I think that game has the potential to develop into. I'm
not sure about the answer of that, but they are such they're an interesting
team. They just they have a lot of players that they can go to
and get stuff done. And you know, Ethan Cole runs the show and
shows the signs of not only one being a coach's son that has experience playing
the quarterback position that has passed that along. But a guy who has a
lot of experience under center doesn't seem to get rattled very much and knows how
to utilize his tools for the best of his ability. All right, Suz,
I'm gonna go ahead and if I can get my there we go.
I'm gonna go ahead and throw this on screen here and let's see did I
miss anything in the comments before we move on? You know what, I'm
going to pull this back off just for a second here because I do want
to You got a question from Zachary. We'll do this before we start,
kind of going class by class here. Answer his question, do you think
there's a fix to the public league issue? Zachary asked, the public League
finished twenty two and was outscored, what by a lot? But when you
say in twenty two, they did have a couple winners, right, they
had two wins, but they were against other Chicago public schools. So so
question, I think what the question is asking is clarifying there. I'm not
sure about this, but he's saying in the twenty two games where they didn't
play a Chicago Public League team as the opponent, they were oh and twenty
two. I'm not sure about that scoring margin. It was pretty wide.
The only the only Public League school that actually had a chance to beat a
non CPL school appeared to be Nobel Johnson, who lost by one point to
Stillman Valley in the Class three A ranks. But you know, and and
attempting to answer his question, I think there are some things that could mitigate
this a little bit. I don't know if the ISSA and the Public League
would ever go along with it. Like those that don't know, the Public
League is divided into the red and the Blue divisions, or excuse me,
the red and the white, and then there's a blue division that doesn't qualify
for the playoffs at all. But the red teams tend to be the better
CPL programs, the ones that might have a shot of competing in those games.
The white divisions are developing programs and programs that are unlikely to have any
chance of picking up a win in the state playoffs should they get there.
What I would personally like to see is if you're gonna let the white playoff
teams qualify, then they have to go in at the bottom of the field
like they need to be the bottom seeds after you determine who else gets in.
Like I said, I don't think I don't think anyone would go along
with that. But I mean, there were a couple of White Division teams
that ended up with one seeds in the bracket and they got absolutely destroyed.
So you know, that's something that I think needs to be looked at.
I don't know if it ever will, but I think that would be something
that would mitigate some of these problems. I don't think you can tell them
not to participate in the playoffs. They have that right just like everybody else.
But I think there needs to be some sort of weighted system because this
happened. It's not like this is an isolated issue. This happens every single
year. We get twenty two to twenty five playoff teams in the field from
the Chicago Public League and they all get pretty much pounded in the first round
of the playoffs. So, like I mean, at least if you put
them at the bottom of the draw, it's fair to the teams that are
involved in the playoffs that are not from the Public League, because as a
top seed, you deserve a game like that. What we had happened this
week is we had a couple of sixteen seeds, fifteen seeds, fourteen seeds
winning first round games, and other situations where there were two and three seeds
they got locked up with an absolute powerhouse in origin as for instance, prey
origin as for example. So there's got to be a better way to balance
staff than the system that we're using now, especially that little that little quirk
this year that had two White division teams, you know, ending up as
the top seeds and the respective brackets. And there's just no way that that
should have been that should have been allowed to happen. Yeah, I think,
Zachary, they're down the road. I could also see Susan. This
is a far more radical thing. But you know, at some point we're
going to see like an eight man playoff be incorporated more closely. I think
with the IHSA, you know we're seeing fallen and role I mean participation numbers
where we're seeing you know, eleven man teams drop out. I think at
some point we could see like a private school playoff, an eight man playoff,
you know, maybe six classes, and then you know, like if
you wanted to, you could do a public league playoff. Too, and
just give the option to play up into the IHSA main field each year or
something like that. Yeah, I think that might be, you know,
a potential solution. It's for me, it's like when we when we start
talking about districts again. You know, if we end up going to some
sort of district system, I don't know how you solve this problem. Yeah,
because you're going to have to infiltrate those CPL programs into these districts and
what we're seeing in the playoffs will see on a weekly basis in the regular
season. If we end up, you know, kind of throwing everybody in
the pot and then sorting them out into districts with you know, half public
league half non public league, and those will be really, really sloppy.
So uh, you know, for whatever you have to say about whether or
not the districts will work, they need to solve that problem. Whether we
stay in conference system or district system, they need to figure out some way
to accommodate for that. This is a perfect time for me to plug being
a subscriber for Friday Night Drive and all of sy'all local dot com because you
know, just because the season is going to be ending here, in four
more weeks. Doesn't mean our coverage can be going to be concluding. We'll
have all of our postseason stuff like husual. But you know, beyond that,
the district measure is back or probably going to be back on the ballot
for a vote this year in December. You know, it was passed onnth
before and then rescinded. I have no idea how this is going to go,
but there's definitely gonna be a lot going on to talk about football wide
right zoos. Yeah, you know, it's like you said, it hasn't
been put on the ballot yet. I've been led to believe that it probably
will be. But I think once again it becomes a discussion of transparency.
What does this district proposal look like? How does it deal with some of
these things? And people ask, well, why did it get rescinded last
time? That was the problem, Like a lot of people did not know
what this system would look like, and they got cold feet because we saw
some mock districts. A lot of people did not like them, and they
were like, hey, hey, hold on a minute, yeah, so
this is not what we signed up for. No, yeah, what you
signed up for? Yeah? If if we want, If districts is something
that we want, I think for the benefit of everybody, it needs to
be a transparent process. It needs to be said, hey, these are
the problems that we see in the conference system. This is how the districts
fixed them. Guys like and show you how it works instead of some random
grouping of teams that doesn't really make sense. So, you know, like
I said, you like you said, there'll be a lot to discuss in
this off season. Obviously, you know, changes in this and changes in
that, and sorting it all out as kind of, you know, one
of the chores of the off season. But this year might be a little
bit more interesting. I still have my doubts whether or not the district proposal
will pass unless we're shown something that says, hey, this is a superior
system. Because from talking to people, there are some people that are advocates
for districts in a big way. But when you start really digging into it,
does the Catholic League want the Catholic League to disappear? That's what districts
does. Does do the Public league want to be infiltrated in with everybody else
or do they want to keep doing their own thing. That's what districts does.
I mean, some of these conferences, as much as people complain about,
you know, conference jumping, some of them are really stable and they
work for people. So I mean, you know, and there are reasons
why people don't play people and you lose that autonomy as an athletic program if
you say here, I just say, put us in a district. So
I mean, that's I think that's we struck a nerve with the district talk
today. Well we talked about this before. I can go all day on
this, but it's what I want. I mean, if you have a
better system, that's fine, because I have problems with the current system and
I can go on those all day too, But show it to me.
Don't just tell me it's better. Trust us, because that's kind of what
happened last time. Yeah, absolutely what happened last time. But all right,
that's well, we'll get to more of that in the off season.
Let's go ahead, sus. I'm gonna pull the brackets back up on the
screen. We'll go through one one a through eight day. If you guys
have questions that we go along. I'll try and keep up with those,
Sus, and we don't obviously have to hit on every every game and in
each class here. So let's just pick out some things that you found interesting
and we'll work our way from there. What do you so, where do
you want to start? Where do you want to by me? Well,
you know, I you know, one A was pretty predictable. I felt,
you know, Rova beating Newman Central Catholic a little surprising, I guess,
but you know, not not all that much. I'll talk Catholic Man
seventy six points against Tuscola. I know this Tuscola team is down, but
that caught me a little bit by not by surprise, it just kind of
reinforces that this all tough team is. It's gonna be a really, really
tough out in one A. Yeah, And it's one of the things when
when you look at it, they're in one A and a lot of people
aren't real thrilled about that. They they had lost their multiplier because because of
the you know the fact that they were basically playing like a five A six
A equivalent schedule and we're having a hard time getting into the playoffs because of
that. Well, they're still playing a pretty pretty large group of schools that
have, you know, large enrollments, but this is a really talented group.
I was kind of tipped off to him in the summer by one of
my friends down that way. Was like, he was like, you know,
Bellville Autos is going to be dangerous in three A. And I looked
him in the face and I said, they're not three A. He's like,
what two? I said, no, they're one and and his job
just dropped. So he was like, I mean, he didn't even realize
that. He thought they were like a three A program that was gonna make
some noise up there. And when I told him they weren't multiplied and they
were going to drop the one A, like, he was floored. And
he was absolutely right. The extremely fast team athletic makes place can score seemingly
at will, and at the one A level, they're bringing a level of
athleticism that you don't often see at that classification. Yet anything else than one
A suis I mean, I felt like it was it was pretty chalky to
me, Like I really felt like when I when I finally sorted through the
results a little bit on Saturda late Saturday afternoon, early evening, you know,
I didn't see anything that really kind of threw me. There were a
couple of games that I thought might go the other way, but nothing,
nothing was like, oh my goodness, you know, I just didn't see
that coming. So I thought this week was going to be where we saw
a lot of interesting matchups, and we'll get to that later in the week.
But the first round I didn't see a whole lot of games that were
going to be all that compelling. And they did. They certainly didn't play
out that way. Yeah, all right, let's go to two A here.
The you know, we talk about that two A North bracket being loaded.
The top seeds on that side pretty much held serve that rock Ridge score.
I mean, I think we've talked about rock Ridge a little bit in
recent weeks. Not surprising to see them pick up the win against Westville there.
I wasn't surprised at all. They they've played so well in the three
rivers with the eight and one record, you know, beat handed Morrison their
only loss, and I like that Morrison team a lot. You know.
The only thing for them I thought might be challenging was that significantly long road
trip. But other than that, they they did a really nice job getting
through there. The thing that really stood out to me, and I knew
this was going to happen kind of regardless of the way the results came out,
barring a couple of upsets, but the collective record of the North bracket
is seventy six and four as we head into the second round. And I
had a couple of people asking me this week if I can ever remember anything
like that, and I'm gonna be honest, I can't. I can't ever
remember a collective record of one side of the bracket being that good heading into
the second round of the tournaments. So, you know, I kind of
compare it a little bit to the three A North of last year. But
even that group I looked it up, had seven collective losses. So it's
definitely a really unique group. And some thunderous second round matchups being set up
in the North, It's probably a good time to pull up this question from
Adam. He says, do you think the push for one two thirty two
seating gets louder from smaller schools after round one results. I don't know if
it gets louder. I think it starts to resonate a little bit more when
people talk about it. It's a discussion that seems to not really come up
until now, and then it disappears again. It just kind of falls off
the wayside, and then everybody gets charged up about it when we actually get
into playing the games or when the act brackets are released. It's now now.
It seems that discussion has seemed to be been put on the back burner
for the time being, but I think it probably comes raging back if we
still have this playoff system in place in the future. My so, my
nephew texts me asking who moments played, and at first he goes, is
it an Aurora team? And I go no, And then he got excited
because it wasn't an Aroa team. I thought, I'm not even sure who
he thought it was gonna be. But then I told him role Foresight.
He goes, is that good? I go no, But really, in
too a North, there was never gonna be a good answer that I was
going to give you, buddy, So yeah, there's there was no I
mean, like if you said, if you said, if you offered a
team to the opportunity to pick their poison here, I don't know if they're
really getting a good choice, Like if you said here I'm going to give
you these six teams you get to pick. I think you wrestle with it
a little bit. And I don't think there's anyone on the list that you
go, yeah, we got those guys. I mean, it's that's how
deep it is. It's just, you know, I was kind of of
the opinion that maybe biz Mark Kenny would pull off that upset and upset the
you know, the apple cart a little bit here. They were close,
but they weren't able to do that. But everybody else just kind of,
you know, man handled their way into the next round moment struggled a little
bit with Knoxville, but a really strong defensive effort from them. They're going
to need that this week against Merriall Foresyth. Yeah, on the south side
of the bracket. Our first what I would say, you know, Quincy
Notre Dame, Arthur Lovington, what did you think that? Well? I
kind of called that one. I kind of sensed that one might be coming.
Yeah. I don't want I don't want to talk badly about Arthur's conference
because I don't know that much about it. But I wasn't sure if if
it had prepared these teams, you know, in the right way for the
two way playoffs. I guess that's that's proving to be correct, as all
of those teams did not advance out of the first round. But you could
kind of sense that maybe that was going to be one of those sixteen to
one games where the team might win. Quincy Notre Dame playing a very eclectic
schedule, let's just say that open with a couple of Illinois teams and much
larger classifications that kind of handed it to them, Yeah, including crosstown rival
Quincy. A seven a school that advanced in the playoffs, played five games
in the Missouri so getting a really good feel for them was hard. But
you got the sense in this one that they were a little bit more prepared
for the Riggers of the two A draw than Arthur. Was Nashville doing Nashville
things, Suce. You know, I expected Nashville to win that game.
I didn't expect him to win by that margin, But I don't know ninety
seven. Yeah, I don't know what happened to Paint in the second half
of the season. I don't know if it was injuries or what went on,
but they seemed to be a much stronger team in the first half of
the season, they kind of struggled down the back half. So when I
didn't see the score, I I kind of went whoe for a second.
But then I really started to think about it, and I'm like, going,
that kind of fits with what we saw over the second half of the
year. Let's go on to three A unless you've got anything else here,
No, we're good, all right, let's do it. Seventy two points
from Byron against the Chicago Public League team. Man, that's I don't even
know what to say about that. Well, I will say this on the
one comment about it. They passed the six hundred point mark on the season
with that. With that point total from this week, I'm not sure any
team has ever passed the six hundred point mark after ten games. Like,
that's what we're talking about here, like a historic amount of offense. I
mentioned it in today's column. But they are. They are within striking distance
of the state record for points scored. If they were to run the table
and get to the state championship game, it's within their sites so which is
just over eight hundred points by Peoria, by the way, so they may
have four more crack at it, so it'll be interesting to see if they
can run that down because it's so it's it's not like you think about that
with Peoria, like Peoria just running that insane wide open offense. It's not
like Bayronett is out there slinging the ball around. You know, No,
they probably have They probably have a dozen pass attempts on the season. Maybe,
Yeah, it it's in. It's incredible how well they run that system.
It just really is. It's just I mean, I've seen them live
several times, and you know, it's it's similar to it's kind of similar
to what Wilmington does. And it's the same argument that I've heard about Wilmington
football for for so many years. You know what's coming, Why is it
so hard to stop it? Well, it just is, guys. I
guarantee if you went out there and tried it, it's it's not as easy
as you think it is. And they run it so so well. Yeah,
all right. Elsewhere in three A, we're looking at Son MoMu Roseville
when thirty five fourteen over North Boon. I know you and I we've had
some questions about those second level teams, second tier teams in the Big Northern
Conference. Between that and Stillman Valley really struggling to get by that CPL team.
I kind of had that one. I feel like that was confirmed for
US. Yeah, I mean, and then look you look higher up on
the bracket and I expected this too. Oregon US another team that lost in
the three y of bracket kind of handily to a very good do Peck team.
But we had talked, like you said, we mentioned it before,
just that second tier, the big Northern not quite at the level that they
usually are at this point. Everybody was chasing Byron like usual, but the
gap was much wider than it usually is between Byron and the rest of the
conference. It appears one of my favorite first round matchups in any class this
weekend was Tolno Unity and Williamsville, two teams that were used to seeing playing
state semifinals and state championship games. Tolno Unity thirty five to twenty one win
over that over Williamsvild's. Yeah, and you look at that game, and
obviously both of those two teams have a lot of postseason pedigree. We've seen
them in three A finals, you know, as recently as just a couple
of years ago. In both of those cases, so to see them on
those lines in the in the first round, kind of telling a good week
in general for the Alaini Prairie Conference. You can look down there you see
Saint Joe Ogden with a victory to Lono Unity with a win, Bloomington Central
Catholic winning in two A. So overall that was a good showing for that
league, which I think, honestly is one of the better two way three
A four A type of conferences in the state of Illinois. That doesn't get
a lot of respect for that, but it's a it's a very deep league.
I'm gonna keep us moving right along, sus because we are already past
a half an hour. Thank you everyone who is joining us live on YouTube.
You can give us a question or comment in the chat there. We
will get to those as we can. Of course, please do subscribe to
the channel and leave us a up. We appreciate if you can do that
for us. Uh suits over here in Class four A, you know,
one of the bigger surprises, I guess it is Saint Vider fourteen zero.
You know, you know I was talking with Joe Steven said about this on
on on Saturday watching Prairie Rige Naz and I mentioned it on the podcast couple
of times that I was concerned with the RB offense. They had not fared
well against you know, top competition this year, so I thought Saint Vider
had a chance in this game. Still, I was frankly shocked to see
RB shut out at home by Saint Vider. Yeah, I mean, after
it's over, in hindsight, I was like, you know, maybe I
should have sniffed that one out. You know, Saint Vider, you know,
plays such a difficult schedule they have. They had what I classify as
as kind of a signature win for that program over Montini, a team that
I really like to do a lot of damage in the three A bracket.
And you know, there were some signs that maybe but it's just so hard
to I don't want to say right off Richmond Burton, but it's so hard
to discount them just based on their track record. It's so very difficult to
say, Okay, maybe this isn't where Richmond Burton has been in the past,
and maybe pick an upstart like Saint via Er to win that game.
But you could see some of those signs. But I never in a million
years would have thought that they would have been shut out at home in this
game. I just wouldn't have seen that coming. Yeah, I did not
at all. Dixon, there's a big northern team, picks up a win
over Plano. You know, this bracket for the most part, suits went
as I expected. On the north side. I see Zachary down here in
the comments. I can pop that over. Let's see here where I wanted
to go. There it goes. Any thoughts on Keiwani Peoria Notre Dame.
That's Peoria Notre Dame. The fourteen seeds picked up a twenty eight to thirteen
win over number three Kiwani. This is one of those situations where you kind
of look at it on paper and you wonder how the disparity in the two
schedules is going to play out. Peorian Notre Dame playing in the Big twelve,
you know, playing almost a schedule exclusively of five A, six A
and seven A teams, and Kawani almost the polar opposite, you know,
the big fish in you know, a pond of mostly smaller schools in the
three rivers. Usually that will catch up with you in games like this,
and I think that did a little bit here Pori Notre Dame solid but not
spectacular football team did okay in the Big Twelve this year, beat who they
should be, struggled against the better teams in the conference, which is to
be kind of expected with that kind of enrollment disparity, so not really sure
where they were at coming into this game. I wasn't Let's put it this
way, I wasn't surprised when I saw the result. It was the way
that I picked the game to go, and primarily because of those reasons.
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. All right, let's go down to Class five are
Actually was there's something else I wanted to check on No. Five A.
Suits we already hit on Nas Prairie Ridge, so we'll go ahead past that.
Trying to scan here quickly, Saint Francis really put a hurting on Rochelle.
I can't say I was too shocked, although I do want to say
that was a really nice season for the Hub. That was a tough first
round matchup. Yeah, it was a brutal draw, and they were kind
of dancing between the four and five A brackets, and at one point in
time, I was kind of feeling like maybe both Morris and Rochelle were going
to end up in the four A bracket. And my immediate response was to
that was that's gonna be a problem for the four A bracket because I thought
both of those teams could make quite a bit of noise in the fur A
bracket. I still think Morris is still going to be heard from deep in
this five A bracket, But yeah, like you said, tough draw for
them in the middle of the draws, especially considering some of the other first
round draws in that north bracket. If it would have tweaked one way or
another for Rochelle, they could have had a much more for two of this
draw here than they ended up getting. Anthony Jones asked, biggest surprise scores
in five A. I think that's certainly on the south side of the bracket,
And I don't know. I don't know if I would say surprise scores.
Maybe the Troy Triad that game Joliett Catholic over Peoria. I don't know.
Sus did you how did you pick that game? Oh? I did
pick Joy Catholic on thoughts of yeah, it was. It was kind of
in a situation where I felt like, if push came to shove, joli
At Catholic could just put the plow down and run behind their offensive line and
move it effectively enough, I think. And once again, this is another
situation where both teams had to play in it pretty steady rain for like almost
the entire first half, and I think that limited Peoria more than it did
Joliet Catholic. They weren't kind of able to throw it, maybe as much
as they would have liked to. But that being said, Peoria needed to
get some stops at some point in time, and they really didn't do that.
Jolie Catholic was able to sustain drives. So no matter what Peoria would
have been able to do offensively, eventually they were gonna have to get some
stops and they really didn't do it. Providence over Morton. That surprised you
at all, You know, I saw that game too, and I picked
Providence. I didn't feel good about the pick at the time. It to
be frank, it was a really leaf football game. An a ton of
turnovers, a ton of penalties. The second half was one of the strangest
situations I had ever seen. We went into halftime with Providence leading the game
twenty one to fourteen. Nobody scored in the second half, but there was
so much going on that like it felt like we were scoring, if that
makes any sense. It was like Morton kept driving, driving, driving,
Providence would pick off the pass or they you know, they'd make they'd make
a play. You know, Providence's offense was struggling moving the ball, but
they'd get it down to like the twenty and then something strange would happen,
like it was. I mean, they went for it on fourth down and
inches, they didn't get it. You know, Morton gets the ball back,
they fumble it back to them. There's just so much stuff that was
Is this going back and forth? Is this a game where the uh,
I'm blanking the three interceptions, Yes, that's there, you go, thank
you. Yeah, three interceptions, and he also had a pick on a
two point conversion at ten. Yes. And he almost had another interception for
what would have been the game tying score in the end zone that just went
off his fingertips. So I mean actually had the potential to have four interceptions
plus the two point pick, so I would have thought it. I would
have thought at some point in time they would have said, hey, maybe
we should stop throwing at this guy. But yeah, it was. It
was. It was quite the effort, and I was I was actually surprised
to learn after the game. I looked it up eight other guys had picked
off three passes in a five A playoff game, so I fully expected that
to be maybe a shared state record with one or two other guys, but
it had happened eight other times in five A playoff games where someone had had
three interceptions in one game. So, uh, just a really interesting game
for him. And and uh, like I said, never, I don't
know if I've ever seen a game that featured no points in the second half
that was so interesting to watch from a I don't know what's going to happen
next here, because just about everything did happen that could happen. Let's see
anything else in five A. Now, I think that was that was about
this about the way that I kind of expected that bracket to kind of play
out for the for the most part, a little bit of hiccups in the
South. Like like you mentioned, treads went over. Mohammed Seymour surprised me
a little bit, but uh interesting, interesting that we're gonna get a more
sacred Heart Griffin game in round two. But we'll talk about that later.
Yeah. Absolutely, We'll be previewing the second round at eleven am on Thursday
right here live on YouTube and Facebook. Uh looking at six a. Uh,
you know, starting up in my neck for the words Fox Valley Conference
Friday night. A couple of games there, Lake Zurch and christ Lake Central
were tied seven to seven at halftime and into the you know, well into
that third quarter of Lake Zurich. I was able to put that one away.
It was a little surprised to see how long Central held into that game,
particularly because they were about their starting quarterback Jason and then Kerry Grove.
I expected Kerry Grove to win, and I expected Kerry Grove to win by
several touchdowns. But they, I mean, they really put a hurting on
Libertyville. You know, I'm feeling pretty good about the Trojans here in the
postseason after the scene and the way they played there. Yeah, that was
the game that I wasn't quite sure what to make of I favored Kerry Grove,
but like you said, didn't expect them to kind of take the margin
that they did. And I really felt like, if if this game went
their way, second round looks favorable for them, then you get into,
you know, a potential quarterfinal round, and when you're at that point,
you expect to see good football teams. But I felt like this bracket opened
up pretty nice for Kerry Grove if they could get on a little bit of
a role. Yeah, I'm feeling good about the Trojans that I said.
You know, after the way the first round played out, I think they're
the favorite in six s A North. So yeah, I can see that
argument. I mean when I'm looking at it now and seeing how Lake Zurich
kind of struggled in that game. Yeah, I'm really interested to see how
the second round game plays out for them. And I wasn't really convinced that
that was going to be as questionable in my mind as it is now.
Ye Like when we started the playoff situation, I agree. On the south
side of the bracket, the top seeds held Serve Blue Island Eisenhower with a
double overtime game there against dunlap suits anything interesting. You know that that was
a game that from what I was picking up on, was kind of a
wild one on Friday night. And and Eisenhower does have a pretty significant weapon
and Andre Lovett who is kind of a do everything guy for them, and
he made the difference I think ultimately in that game. But big challenge awaiting
them in the next round. So a nice win for Blue Island Eyes an
hour. I believe it's the first for that coaching staff in several years there.
But they've been building that program up from the point where it was pretty
much the bottom depths of the conference that they're in and now they're a consistent
playoff qualifier and nice to see them have a little success. All right,
let's go over to Class seven A. We talked about Bradley Bourbone there with
a nice win over Saint Charles North you know, glen Bard East, Uh,
glen Bard East with they win and then Glynbard South one and eight A
didn't they uh they're at five A yeah they yeah, oh yeah, they
went. Yeah. Yeah. Nice weekend there for for the upstate eight Yeah,
you know, definitely South Elgian winning an eight A as well. Yeah,
you know, you know, they picked up some wins there. The
the other schools that qualified from the conference more and more in the vein of
UH kind of happy to be there type of situation with East Aurora and UH
West Chicago. But the big three in that league did work this weekend,
so advancing into the next round, and it's it's probably been a while.
I'd have to look since the Upstate eight has had three teams moving into the
second round. Let's see, well, Batavia, I there's another one.
I expected Batavia to win the game against Brother Rice. I did not expect
it to be forty six to zero. It was a weekend where, for
the most part, I didn't really have any strong reactions to what was going
on in any games. I had a strong reaction when I saw what was
going on in that Batavia Brother Rice game early on, trying to dodge the
rain drops as I was following, you know, the results of the games
on Friday night, I'm like, WHOA hold on a minute. I mean,
I did expect Batavia to win that football game. I expected it to
be a much larger fight. And now now I'm of the opinion that whoever
gets in Batavia's path better or strap it up, because not that I didn't
think they were a threat to do some major damage in this bracket before,
but it appears this team is firing on absolutely all cylinders right now. I'm
going to apologize to Willebroo. I overlooked Willibrook all season long. I picked
them to lose against Yorkville, came out and played a really good game,
picked up a twenty one to thirteen wins. Is I didn't expect it.
It's Willowbrook is really really tricky to try to figure out based on the results
of their season, and this has been this way for a while. If
you go back, and sometimes this doesn't mean a lot, but Willowbrook has
had one of the smallest playoff point totals in the state for any team of
any record. They simply haven't played that many teams this year of quality,
so it makes them a very very hard read heading into a postseason. In
past years, you kind of would give them the benefit of the doubt.
They've made some deep runs when they were backward, when they were in six
A, made the semifinal round a couple of times, and you kind of
said, well, it's the playoff time that schedule doesn't matter. They've done
it, and they've done it before. Well, they kind of took a
little bit of a step back, so you're wondering if that's still held.
There were just some, you know, some lateral concerns with Willowbrook heading into
this game. I too picked Yorkville. I thought I thought Yorkville had been
better battle tested for this game and had the kind of defense that you would
want in this game. So I kind of overlooked them too in this situation.
So and now looking ahead, I kind of think they have a little
bit better shot that round two game than maybe I would have initially thought.
Alex says, how about colin Fille, big win for them, twenty eight
seed. I'll tell you what, Alex, I I'm not surprised about that
at all. I actually picked collum Field to win the game. Yeah.
Yeah, that's That's no disrespect to Main and West. It's just they,
I mean, they have not done much postseason wise, and their their school
history. I look at the conference, I just you know, and I
like Collinsville. Actually that's a pretty solid program. So yeah, Collinsville,
you know, plays that independent schedule, plays a lot of a lot of
the smaller mid range teams in southern Illinois because it's really the only teams that
they can get to schedule them in that situation, but usually does pretty well.
It is a program that has come on fast because if you go back
four or five years, there wasn't much to talk about in Collinsville Football lands.
So nope, they have definitely a massive turnaround there. An interesting team
and the kind of team that I think you go in as kind of a
wild card in this postseason and they teach you real quick that they're they're ready
to be here. Noah Battle put in some work for downers Grove North against
Kenwood. Now downards Grove North a forty two thirteen winner over Kenwood. There.
You know, we've talked about how wide open this bracket feels. SEUs
on that north side or on the upper side of the bracket really kind of
feeling that way after the first round. Still yeah, I think So,
you know, there are a lot of teams in here that I think are
good football teams yep, but haven't really shown me that there. I guess
great football teams they might be, but I just haven't seen full evidence of
that yet. So I think a lot of teams are gonna have an opportunity
to uh, you know, basically put up or shut up in the second
round in regards to, you know, their futures anything else. In seven
AM, you know, I think that it was it was an interesting bracket.
I was really kind of looking at and we didn't talk about this very
much, but I was really kind of looking at how that middle of that
draw bared it out because we had that weird situation where there was that I
brought up last week about the double forfeit, and some of these matchups weren't
actually supposed to be the matchups that they were, So I was kind of
glad to see the upper seeds were able to kind of advance in that fourteen
fifteen, sixteen seventeen range because they actually weren't playing the opponents that they probably
should have played in the first round. So uh so, you know,
seeing those teams all move along, I guess justices served in the long term,
so uh, you know, good for them and getting it done.
But I think seven A is the most intriguing bracket other than having Mount Carmel
on the top line and feeling like they're the favorite. Beyond that, I
think it's it could be open season. We could have a crazy week two
and seven A bracket, all right, one more to go, suss Class
eight A. What do you think here? Where do you want to start?
You know, this was you look at it after the fact. So
few underseeds were able to actually pull off the win. And when I looked
in this bracket beforehand, I want to say I probably had maybe six or
seven of them that I felt like at least had a chance to pull off
that win. And in reality, that was not the way it played out.
I mean, we had a lot of wide margins in the first first
round. There were very few what I would consider to be close in here,
and some of them were just, you know, to be frank,
flat out routes. So you know, that's that's strange from the ad A
bracket because usually there's a depth to it that almost requires that we have four
or five first round games that come down to the wire. I mean,
yeah, usually you're talking. I mean we you know that this bracket is
twenty seven to twenty eight teams deep. We feel and to see this few
teams on the you know, from the lower seeds advant in the second round
is is jacking in probably pretty unheard of. Actually yeah, I mean I'd
have to go back and look, but I mean, I can't remember the
last time we only had, you know, two teams from the bottom half
of the draw winning games. And to be honest with you, those two
games were kind of games that I thought were going to go that way,
right, So, so I mean it was like, I felt like sant
Ignatius was the favorite in that Joliette West game and while Lions Stevenson was kind
of a toss up. In my mind, I did pick Lions. So
you know, it was, like I said, there's usually one or two
teams that just kind of rise up out of this bracket and are like,
hey, we're gonna hang around a little while. We don't care if our
seeds twenty four. And that may still happen with the two that are remaining,
but usually we have more options to choose from on that list. He
is Steve Seussie. I am Kyle Nabors. You are watching live with Friday
Night Drive. We are recapping the first round the playoffs. We're gonna be
here for just a couple more minutes, so if you have any more question
to comment for us, get those into the chat right now if you're watching
on YouTube or Facebook, sus, I'm gonna go to you for now,
though, you know, kind of just give us a little bull on this
first round. Man. You know, it's one of those weird years where
we you know, had a lot of teams pretty much do what we thought
they were gonna do. I mean, that's there always seems to be in
this especially in this first week. You know, five or six games where
we're like, hey, look at these guys. Didn't know that was gonna
happen, and we're not having that conversation this year. I mean we're having
There were some conversation pieces, but like they were Prairie Ridge Nazareth and that
was a conversation piece before the ball was ever kicked off. Yeah, it
wasn't like we were waiting, you know, we were waiting to see the
result and then we had this big blow up conversation about it. This was
expected. So there was a lot of those games out there that I thought
were interesting first round matchups. They proved to be, but most of it
was favorites acting like favorites and moving on to the second round. So history
shows that that's not going to last. So I'm very very interested in what
happens in the second round since we didn't get much of it, much of
it at all in the first round. Where's it going to come from?
Who? Who's going to do that? Because very very chalky first round in
regards to you know what, we got what we were expecting. Yeah,
it really was. But make sure you stick to Friday Night Drive dot Com
all week long and we get ready for that second round. A couple more
comments coming in here. Let's see here, Fred Truss, I didn't see
too many surprises. Were you guys were surprised with any of the results.
I think we just hit on that. Thanks Fred. Benji says Caitlin.
Is there a specific question about what about Caitlin? I think he had asked
earlier. We hit on Kyane Lit a little earlier. Let's see, they
had the fifty six win over fifty six to twenty win over Riverside Brookfield.
You know, they played really well, I think, as we said earlier,
so it's like between that the way they played and Lake Zeric struggling a
bit with Crystal Lake Central. I think we both feel like this is an
interesting matchup in the second round. Well, you just look at what Caitlin's
schedule is, who they lost to. They're not your typical six and three
team. We knew that going in this was a win that I expected them
to get, you know, and now moving into this next round, Like
you just mentioned, I looked at this bracket beforehand. My initial I raised
a little bit eyebrow at a potential Caitlin Lakesert game, feeling like the Exert
would still be a pretty strong favorite. Not sure I feel that way anymore.
I feel like this is a little bit closer to a fifty to fifty
game in the second round than I would have originally anticipated. All right,
guys, we got to run for Steve Seussie. I am Kyle Naghbors.
Thank you everyone who joined us live this morning. Come back with us on
Thursday morning to be sus and I along with Joe Stevenson and Michael Duojack.
You can also get the Friday Night Drive podcast for the Illinois Valley edition that
I'll be coming with JT. Penalty and Eddie Carriffio. For now, we're
going to go ahead and sign off. Thank you once again. Everyone.
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