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Speaker 2: This is State Representative Steve Reich. Since twenty sixteen, it's
Speaker 2: been my privilege to represent the sixty third district in
Speaker 2: the Illinois House. I'd like to continue representing you and
Speaker 2: I'm asking for your vote on November fifth.
Speaker 3: Thank you pay for my citizens to elect Stephen Reich.
Speaker 3: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Friday Night Drive podcast.
Speaker 4: This is Josh well Gay.
Speaker 3: I'm here with Steve Susi and as we tape here
Speaker 3: on Wednesday afternoon, we are two days away from the
Speaker 3: first football Friday and Steve, I know you're as excited
Speaker 3: as I am. And it's funny, you know, during the
Speaker 3: course of the year, we get kind of a countdown
Speaker 3: from our friend in the business, Edgy Tim, and when
Speaker 3: we're around Christmas and we're at three hundred, three hundred
Speaker 3: days away from first.
Speaker 4: Football Friday, I kind of kind of chuckle a little bit.
Speaker 4: But when we get into single digits gets a little.
Speaker 3: Bit serious and and you know, I've read quite a
Speaker 3: bit about a lot of teams, and now I want
Speaker 3: to find out a little bit more about them.
Speaker 4: You know, how are you feeling as we go into
Speaker 4: this week?
Speaker 5: You know, I'm ready to go. I mean, obviously, you know,
Speaker 5: there's a slow trickle of games tomorrow on Thursday, and
Speaker 5: then we really get into the action on Friday. And
Speaker 5: this is always kind of the hardest time for me
Speaker 5: to get through because we're we've been talking about it
Speaker 5: for a while now, you know, two three weeks of
Speaker 5: you know, active preview stories and all this other stuff,
Speaker 5: but there's still so many questions and so much information
Speaker 5: that I'm hoping to glean from week one, and we're
Speaker 5: right on the cusp of it, but we're just not
Speaker 5: quite there. So the anticipation for me in particular is
Speaker 5: pretty high.
Speaker 4: And we talked about it before.
Speaker 3: Week one is is a week that we learned so
Speaker 3: much about teams that we think we might know about,
Speaker 3: but we we don't know until we see them, you know,
Speaker 3: live when on field and get some of that data,
Speaker 3: as you say, And and this year, I think we're
Speaker 3: going to learn a little bit more about some teams,
Speaker 3: because some teams have really gone out and tested themselves
Speaker 3: in Week one. In some cases maybe they wanted to,
Speaker 3: in some cases, maybe they had to. Maybe you could
Speaker 3: talk a little bit more about that, you know.
Speaker 5: I felt like this year it was a situation where,
Speaker 5: you know, even as late as like March in April,
Speaker 5: there were a lot of teams out there that had
Speaker 5: not scheduled games in their non conference schedule, whether it
Speaker 5: be Week one or Week two, or maybe in some
Speaker 5: cases a Week three game. And you know that always happens.
Speaker 5: There's always a few programs that maybe for whatever reason,
Speaker 5: haven't been able to quite line up a game. But
Speaker 5: the list seemed longer this year, and there was a
Speaker 5: common thread inside of it. A lot of them were
Speaker 5: the power programs that were used to seeing at the
Speaker 5: top of preseason polls and all these other things. And
Speaker 5: I think the common thread came through because it was
Speaker 5: like a lot of teams, you know, like you said,
Speaker 5: some are looking for opportunities to challenge themselves. Others maybe
Speaker 5: don't want to take on that challenge for fear that
Speaker 5: it might end up messing up their opportunity to get
Speaker 5: into the playoffs. So the list of opponents for those
Speaker 5: those quality those upperational Hunts programs really shrinked down, and
Speaker 5: eventually they kind of reached the point where it was like,
Speaker 5: we're gonna have to play each other, or we're gonna
Speaker 5: have to schedule somebody four states over or whatever just
Speaker 5: to fill these voids on our schedules. So what it
Speaker 5: led to is a Week one and also a Week
Speaker 5: two where we've got a lot of games between programs
Speaker 5: that we expect to be very, very high in the
Speaker 5: grand scheme of things over the course of the regular season.
Speaker 5: So a lot of marquee non conference matchups to kick
Speaker 5: off the season. We saw it last year, we're seeing
Speaker 5: it again this year, and I think that's been expanded
Speaker 5: upon too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you you looked ahead to a lot of those
Speaker 3: this week, and people are tuning. On Wednesday, Steve dropped
Speaker 3: his you know, week one games to watch a list
Speaker 3: of games on the state that he's really keeping an
Speaker 3: eye on, you know, go to Friday Night Drive dot com.
Speaker 4: We have a lot of content gone.
Speaker 3: We have Steve's preseason playoff for actions, we have our
Speaker 3: preseason power rankings.
Speaker 4: You know, it's it's Wednesday.
Speaker 3: We'll have previous up of all the games, uh and
Speaker 3: in all of our markets across northern Illinois. Uh, they'll
Speaker 3: be going up by Thursday morning. But yeah, let's let's
Speaker 3: you know, drill down into a few.
Speaker 4: Of these matchups. Uh.
Speaker 3: The one that that really you know, jumps off the page. Uh,
Speaker 3: Loyola going down uh to to Illinois States. You know,
Speaker 3: they know that place very well.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and they're gonna be playing East Saint Louis and
Speaker 3: and on Saturday night.
Speaker 4: That's a matchup that I know you're.
Speaker 3: Really excited about, and I'm really excited to see, you know,
Speaker 3: how those two fair when they get together. I mean,
Speaker 3: Loyola is a team coming off of winning the eight
Speaker 3: A state championship, a lot of talent back, a lot
Speaker 3: of Division one talent back and East St.
Speaker 4: Louis.
Speaker 3: I don't think I know quite as much about this
Speaker 3: year than maybe in years past.
Speaker 4: But you know, what are you thinking about that matchup?
Speaker 5: It's it's very interesting. I mean last year we started
Speaker 5: in a somewhat similar fashion with East Saint Louis playing
Speaker 5: Mount Carmel in that game, and I went down for
Speaker 5: that game, and you know, everybody's excited about the start
Speaker 5: of the season, and that was a good way to
Speaker 5: kick off the year. I'm glad that they I mean,
Speaker 5: they tweaked the match up a little bit, but I'm
Speaker 5: glad that they're going to keep this going. It's my
Speaker 5: hope that maybe eventually we can maybe expand that into
Speaker 5: a two or three game outing, to be completely honest
Speaker 5: with you, maybe put a small school marquee matchup on
Speaker 5: in the afternoon or something like that. But I haven't
Speaker 5: really heard anything about that, but I think that would
Speaker 5: be wonderful if they had an opportunity to do that.
Speaker 5: But two programs here that obviously have high expectations and
Speaker 5: expect to find themselves probably back at ISU in late November.
Speaker 5: Loyola has a lot coming back, starting with quarterback Ryan Fitzgerald.
Speaker 5: But they did graduate quite a bit. But the one
Speaker 5: thing about that program, you know they're gonna reload. They
Speaker 5: have a massive roster. They often have kids that maybe
Speaker 5: were backups or even third stringers that would be heavy
Speaker 5: contributors on other programs. That's how deep Loyola tends to
Speaker 5: be on a year to year basis. East Saint louis
Speaker 5: a little bit more of unknown coming into this season,
Speaker 5: but you can't doubt the talent that that program puts
Speaker 5: out on a year to year basis. Different quarterback this year.
Speaker 5: We got a little look at him in the state
Speaker 5: final last year, but having a guy like Pops Battle
Speaker 5: is a stabilizer. Well he's gone now, so East Saint
Speaker 5: Louis will have to answer some questions about, you know,
Speaker 5: how they're going to move the football offensively. But there's
Speaker 5: no doubting that they still have a lot of weapons
Speaker 5: on that team, particularly on defense, a couple of great
Speaker 5: linebackers in there, some good secondary players. This is a
Speaker 5: team that backs away from no one. Like I mentioned before,
Speaker 5: they're playing They're playing three teams that I believe are
Speaker 5: ranked in the national top seventy five outside of this game,
Speaker 5: not even including the Loyola games. So this is a
Speaker 5: team that doesn't back down from anything. And they might
Speaker 5: end up going into the playoffs with a six and
Speaker 5: three or a five and four record, but are an
Speaker 5: absolute dangerous team in any capacity. So should be a
Speaker 5: fun way to kick off the year.
Speaker 3: I'm getting back to what you said off the top
Speaker 3: about about maybe making this a multi game extravaganza, maybe
Speaker 3: get a small school involved.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 4: I like that idea.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you see that in some other
Speaker 3: states sometimes on a national level where you know, you
Speaker 3: get on ESPN some of these teams from across the
Speaker 3: country you get together for sort of a marathon and
Speaker 3: extravaganza football.
Speaker 4: Let's get on that.
Speaker 3: I kinda I kind of, I kind of like, what's
Speaker 3: let's get our heads together and h and get on that.
Speaker 3: But anyway, in the meantime, you mentioned quarterback with Pops Battle,
Speaker 3: you know, moving on. I think the one program that
Speaker 3: that in the offseason got as much attention as anyone,
Speaker 3: uh was Lincoln Way East bringing in with Jonas Williams
Speaker 3: transferring from Bowling Brook. You know a lot of anticipation
Speaker 3: there to see how he fits into what they do,
Speaker 3: because they do a lot of things very well, and
Speaker 3: he does a lot of things very well. And they
Speaker 3: play Maine South right off the jump, and that's a
Speaker 3: matchup that, if I'm not mistaken, might be one of
Speaker 3: those that, hey, they're looking for teams to play.
Speaker 4: And here they are. Yeah.
Speaker 5: That this was one of those games that it took
Speaker 5: fairly long to get into the you know, into the
Speaker 5: spring before it was on the books. And and I
Speaker 5: remember talking to Lincolna East coause Rob Zonar about this
Speaker 5: before they had the games booked, and he was like, well,
Speaker 5: it's not official yet, you know, you don't want to
Speaker 5: jump the gun on these things, but he had said
Speaker 5: that it was Maine South and for Lincoln Way East,
Speaker 5: the way things have developed currently, they don't have a
Speaker 5: Week two games. So they actually were scheduled to play
Speaker 5: a team out of Florida at the East Saint Louis Jamboree,
Speaker 5: and that team backed out of the game. So right
Speaker 5: now Lincoln Way East is looking at a situation where
Speaker 5: they get to open up against Maine South, a high
Speaker 5: quality opponent, and and less things change rather quickly, then
Speaker 5: they're off next week. So I'm sure they're chomping at
Speaker 5: the bit to get this game in and then uh,
Speaker 5: and then we'll have to cool their jets a little
Speaker 5: bit before getting back into the fray on week three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a there's more than one team, if I'm
Speaker 3: not mistaken, that still has some open dates that they
Speaker 3: didn't think. I mean, I think you know, I see
Speaker 3: Catholic Prep is able to find a Week one game,
Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken, they're looking for.
Speaker 5: Week two, I think so the last I had heard
Speaker 5: there was an issue with that school having signed the
Speaker 5: contract to come play them, So I don't know if
Speaker 5: that has been resolved, but as of as of recently,
Speaker 5: the only game that they seemed to be searching for
Speaker 5: was the Week one game, which they did fill with
Speaker 5: Saint Mary's out of Saint Louis, a pretty solid program
Speaker 5: down that way that also had had an opponent basically
Speaker 5: back out on them, so so that that Week one
Speaker 5: thing was resolved. We've we've had a couple of interesting
Speaker 5: situations with a few teams that have announced that they're
Speaker 5: not going to carry on with regular seasons, and some
Speaker 5: of those conferences have done a pretty good job of
Speaker 5: linking up with one another to create some non conference
Speaker 5: games in those vacancies. I think the most interesting one
Speaker 5: to me was Byron and Williamsville, a couple of strong
Speaker 5: three A programs are playing in Week three this year
Speaker 5: because of one member of each of their conferences decided
Speaker 5: that they weren't going to be able to continue with
Speaker 5: varsity football, left them both Week three vacancies, so they
Speaker 5: linked up and they're playing in Williamsville. So that was
Speaker 5: like I described it at the time. That's one way
Speaker 5: to take a batch of lemons that you've been given
Speaker 5: and make a real tasty batch of lemonades. So that's
Speaker 5: a good resolution to a bad situation. In my opinion, I.
Speaker 3: Say, no doubt and definitely that is definitely making the
Speaker 3: best out of a bad situation when you get teams
Speaker 3: like Byron and Williamsville getting together on the football field, Steve,
Speaker 3: towards the end of last year, as we went into
Speaker 3: the playoffs, you know, one of the big kind of
Speaker 3: storylines was a number of four and five teams that
Speaker 3: were able to qualify for the playoffs for just the
Speaker 3: way I'd say math works. Most notably was Nazareth. They
Speaker 3: started the season zero to four. I believe not taken
Speaker 3: the year after they started the season two and four
Speaker 3: and won the state championship. They started zero to four,
Speaker 3: They get in the playoffs at five and four, and
Speaker 3: then they go all the way to the state championship.
Speaker 3: They'd be a joyant Catholic again. They rallied from behind,
Speaker 3: because that's what they did last year. But uh, you know,
Speaker 3: they start, uh, I'm sure they don't want to to
Speaker 3: repeat that scenario, but uh, but boy, they right off
Speaker 3: the bat getting kanky keep coming to there, and that's
Speaker 3: been kind of a nice little, you know, game that's
Speaker 3: developed the last few years in a non conference setting.
Speaker 4: And then of course, you know, uh.
Speaker 3: Kanky Key it was a really kind of unusual game
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago as a two to nothing final,
Speaker 3: and then canky keeping in last year. I obviously I
Speaker 3: know a lot about Nazareth, but uh, you know, what
Speaker 3: do you think about that matchup?
Speaker 5: You know, like you said, it has become kind of
Speaker 5: an interesting little situation for them. I was at the
Speaker 5: kanky Kee Nazareth game last year, and to be honest
Speaker 5: with you, I thought I thought Nazareth would be able
Speaker 5: to handle that game pretty convincingly and that was not
Speaker 5: the case. Can't Key played very well and beat them. Nazareth,
Speaker 5: like you said, that doesn't want to put themselves in
Speaker 5: that situation where they, you know, have to dig out
Speaker 5: of the hole. But kudos to them for playing the
Speaker 5: non conference schedule that they do. They play kanka Key,
Speaker 5: week two, they played Kenwood, and then week three they're
Speaker 5: not even in conference play yet. But their crossover game
Speaker 5: is a little team you might have heard of, Mount Carmel,
Speaker 5: So I mean they open up so strong in that
Speaker 5: schedule and another thing, and I was talking with one
Speaker 5: of one of our colleagues, Michael Trojack, about this earlier
Speaker 5: this offseason. Some of these Catholic League conferences are so
Speaker 5: stacked that you can literally look at them before the
Speaker 5: season based on what you know and stack the four
Speaker 5: teams in any order and make a justification for it.
Speaker 5: And I think that's especially true in Nazareth's conference, which
Speaker 5: with the realignment includes Saint rita ic CAF like Nazareth
Speaker 5: and Wheaton Saint Francis, And I mean, you look at
Speaker 5: those teams on paper and they all look like the
Speaker 5: kind of teams that can make potentially make deep postseason
Speaker 5: runs and the classifications that they're in, and you could legitimately,
Speaker 5: in my mind's eyes, stack them any way as a
Speaker 5: conference projection at the beginning of the year. And I
Speaker 5: think that's not the only league in the Catholic League
Speaker 5: where you can do that. So once you get into
Speaker 5: Catholic League play, after potentially playing a difficult non conference schedule,
Speaker 5: I think we're going to find a lot of teams
Speaker 5: we're getting down to Week nine where they're sitting there
Speaker 5: at four and four playing another strong team that you know,
Speaker 5: they need to get that fifth win, but their schedule
Speaker 5: has been so strong that if we do indeed have
Speaker 5: four win teams get back in the playoffs, and I
Speaker 5: actually think we're going to have more of them this
Speaker 5: year for a couple of different reasons. Those teams are
Speaker 5: going to be excellently positioned as four win teams, like
Speaker 5: Nazareth was last year to be one of those teams,
Speaker 5: because they're gonna have a ton of playoff points because
Speaker 5: of this extremely complicated and difficult schedule that most of
Speaker 5: them are undertaking.
Speaker 3: You know, you kind of read my mind because I
Speaker 3: was gonna ask your early sense as we stand here
Speaker 3: on August twenty eighth of four and five, is that
Speaker 3: a new normal that, at least in the short term
Speaker 3: we should be looking forward to, or what's your sense
Speaker 3: at it right now?
Speaker 5: Well, there are a couple of things that factor into it.
Speaker 5: I mean, when you start to think about just the
Speaker 5: general math of things. For years and years and years,
Speaker 5: we had at least, you know, low five hundred teams
Speaker 5: participating in the ISSA playoff system. Now, after a couple
Speaker 5: of early season defections, that numbers down to four ninety three.
Speaker 5: So if you do just simple math, more than half
Speaker 5: of the teams that participate in ISSA football are going
Speaker 5: to make the playoffs. We need two fifty six to
Speaker 5: fill the common fields right now, so we're actually well
Speaker 5: under that. We're we're almost at we're almost like fifty
Speaker 5: two to fifty three percent of the teams are going
Speaker 5: to get in. Well, just doing the simple win loss formula,
Speaker 5: you almost have to have four and five teams unless
Speaker 5: something quirky happens where every team that plays an out
Speaker 5: of state team wins, every team that plays a non
Speaker 5: qualifying team in Illinois they win all those games. That
Speaker 5: would really be the only way that we would get
Speaker 5: all five win teams in the playoffs with no four
Speaker 5: win teams. That's just not realistic. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 5: So simple mass says it's going to happen. It's just
Speaker 5: a matter of how many. And then you take the
Speaker 5: added layer on where the fact that the Chicago Public
Speaker 5: League has once again changed the way that they're going
Speaker 5: to send teams into the playoffs. They've made little tweaks
Speaker 5: and the other tweaks like this, some of the middle
Speaker 5: divisions in the CPL, which are known as the white divisions,
Speaker 5: there are certain conferences in the CPL where only the
Speaker 5: winner of that conference will qualify for the playoffs. In
Speaker 5: the past, those conferences would produce maybe as many as
Speaker 5: three or four teams that would get into the qualification system.
Speaker 5: Now it's only gonna be one. So I think last year,
Speaker 5: I believe we had twenty five teams from the Chicago
Speaker 5: Public League qualify. I think that number could drop to
Speaker 5: as as few as fifteen or sixteen, so based on
Speaker 5: these changes. So those two things, combined, the dwindling number
Speaker 5: of programs, the number of CPO qualifiers that were likely
Speaker 5: to have I'd be absolutely stunned if we didn't have
Speaker 5: some four win teams get in. And if you put
Speaker 5: me on the spot right now, I'll tell you I
Speaker 5: think it's going to be a double digit number of
Speaker 5: four win teams that gets into the playoffs. Somewhere in
Speaker 5: the neighborhood of ten to twelve would be my anticipation
Speaker 5: at this point in time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, that certainly changes that Dana amics of as
Speaker 3: we're looking through the course of the season of where
Speaker 3: each individual team is and what their path is. When
Speaker 3: the path looks a little bit different when they're looking
Speaker 3: I mean we forever.
Speaker 4: It feels like we've.
Speaker 3: Said, all right, we need to get to five, you know,
Speaker 3: drive for five, and now that's I mean, most teams
Speaker 3: probably are still thinking like that. I recall last year
Speaker 3: I covered Yorkville and Plainfield North playing Field North lost
Speaker 3: their their Week nine game to go to four and five,
Speaker 3: and their post game afterwards it was like, I mean,
Speaker 3: there was hugs and and goodbyes, like, hey, we're not
Speaker 3: we're not playing again, and next thing you know, you know,
Speaker 3: they're in the playoffs. So uh just kind of it's
Speaker 3: gonna make for a very interesting dynamic for Week nine.
Speaker 3: But hey, we're only in August, so uh well we'll
Speaker 3: get to that at some point.
Speaker 4: Looking at some of the other matchups that that I see, you.
Speaker 3: Know, on a small school level, uh you know, Hope Academy.
Speaker 3: I got to do their their preview for their conference,
Speaker 3: you know, uh, for for Friday Night Drive and for
Speaker 3: our magazine, and I really had a great conversation with
Speaker 3: their coach, coach Mallett, and and he talked about how
Speaker 3: you know, we don't duck in anybody, and you know,
Speaker 3: we'll play anybody. He mentioned they've gone to California before,
Speaker 3: they I feel like they've been to multiple states. Well
Speaker 3: they're not going to California week one, but they are
Speaker 3: going to Wilmington. So but that is one of the matchups,
Speaker 3: you know, outside of the eight A seventy six A
Speaker 3: brackets that I'm really paying attention to.
Speaker 4: Hey, football fans, listen up. I'm top there and I
Speaker 4: drive a Hawk.
Speaker 5: I got it from my friends at Hawk Volkswagen.
Speaker 4: So drive what I drive. Drive a Hawk off Volkswagon on.
Speaker 5: Jefferson Street in Joliet or online at HAWKVW dot com. Well,
Speaker 5: this was kind of funny because I'm friends with coaches
Speaker 5: on both sides of this, and both of these two
Speaker 5: teams were kind of once again, they were another teams
Speaker 5: looking for games and trying to figure out what worked.
Speaker 5: And I kind of instigated this game, to be completely
Speaker 5: honest with you, and I think both of these coaches
Speaker 5: would admit to that. I kind of put them together
Speaker 5: and said, hey, guys, I think this is an interesting
Speaker 5: contrast and styles, and it would be a great opportunity
Speaker 5: for you guys to do what you always do, which
Speaker 5: is both of those programs historically have not backed away
Speaker 5: from playing anybody that is willing to play them. So,
Speaker 5: I mean, Hope has been all over the place playing
Speaker 5: schools sometimes four and five times larger than them on
Speaker 5: a regular basis with no concern about whether or not
Speaker 5: they'll be able to compete, and they usually answer the bell.
Speaker 5: So this is a fun matchup in Wilmington, as a
Speaker 5: lot of people that have followed me and what I
Speaker 5: do for a long time. Is one of my favorite
Speaker 5: football atmospheres in the States. So a fun opportunity for
Speaker 5: two really good quality programs to kick off the season
Speaker 5: against one another at the small level.
Speaker 3: Wilmington's got a couple of interesting games that started the
Speaker 3: year they get a whole academy. Then I know they
Speaker 3: go to Sandwich in a week two and Sandwich was
Speaker 3: a team last year.
Speaker 4: People are not familiar.
Speaker 3: They went from not having football in twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: oh and nine. A years before that that they only
Speaker 3: made they made the quarterfiles in Class four A.
Speaker 4: So a couple really kind of you.
Speaker 3: Know again, interestings for Wilmington. I'm I'm quite certain that
Speaker 3: they're up to the challenge and they'll do just fine,
Speaker 3: but interesting to see how that's gonna, you know, come
Speaker 3: about a game that I'm really interested in I'm actually
Speaker 3: gonna be out there on Saturday, Deshaun Field for my money,
Speaker 3: best setting for high school football and Illinois. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: just bring Batavia to town. Patavia Glenbard West. They might
Speaker 3: be the two best programs in the western suburbs. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure about that, but they're definitely in the top,
Speaker 3: very top echelon.
Speaker 4: You know, what's your thoughts on that matchup?
Speaker 5: Well, this is one that I believe a few years
Speaker 5: ago when we went through the whole COVID situation, this
Speaker 5: game was on the books to be happening back then
Speaker 5: and it ended up getting washed away because I remember
Speaker 5: being a little upset about that because I was like, man,
Speaker 5: I really want to see that game, and I'm glad
Speaker 5: to see that we figured out a way to finally
Speaker 5: get it done. Like you said, a great environment for
Speaker 5: another great environment for high school football at Glenbard West.
Speaker 5: It's one that I'm hoping that I'm able to get
Speaker 5: to as well on Saturday afternoon. Two programs that really
Speaker 5: have established themselves as kind of the gold standard out
Speaker 5: in that area of the state. You know, Batavia's kind
Speaker 5: of bounced back and forth between the six and seven
Speaker 5: A playoffs over recent years, Glenbard West is kind of
Speaker 5: a seven A eight A bubble team. But either way,
Speaker 5: whatever bracket those two teams end up in, they're the
Speaker 5: kind of team that you don't want to see in
Speaker 5: the postseason because they tend to put it together. They
Speaker 5: tend to have that good team chemistry they and they
Speaker 5: also tend to have a couple of top shelf you know,
Speaker 5: athletes and competitors that really help you along at that
Speaker 5: time of year. So a really great non conference match
Speaker 5: up here, But you know another situation where you look
Speaker 5: at their schedules and you really kind of have to tip,
Speaker 5: even if it was out of necessity, you have to
Speaker 5: kind of tip your cap to those two programs for
Speaker 5: actually playing this game. Glen Bard West was really in
Speaker 5: a bind and they're playing a little team I don't know,
Speaker 5: maybe maybe heard of them too. They have Loyola in
Speaker 5: week two before they enter you know, a brutal conference
Speaker 5: schedule in the West Suburban you know, Batavia the du Cane.
Speaker 4: On a year to year.
Speaker 5: Basis, I think the depth from top to bottom is
Speaker 5: what really impresses me about that conference. You can finish
Speaker 5: in the middle of the pack in that conference and
Speaker 5: still be a really really good football team. And I
Speaker 5: think if you run through that league without a loss,
Speaker 5: you've really accomplished something, because it feels like on a
Speaker 5: week to week basis, there's at least one, maybe two
Speaker 5: games that are just these wild shootouts that come down
Speaker 5: to the last minute of the game. So, you know,
Speaker 5: once again, kudos to these two programs for making this
Speaker 5: game happen. I know, in some respects they may not
Speaker 5: have had a choice in the matter. They simply wanted
Speaker 5: to find a game. But once again, it both of
Speaker 5: these two teams. After this one's over, whoever wins it,
Speaker 5: whoever loses it is going to face a pretty big
Speaker 5: climb the rest of the way.
Speaker 3: That's gonna say. I mean, you know you learned about
Speaker 3: teams from week one, Well, i'll tell you what. We're
Speaker 3: going to learn a few things about Glenbard West the
Speaker 3: first few weeks when they got the TV at home,
Speaker 3: loyal at home, and oh, by the way, then they
Speaker 3: start silver play at downalds Grove North. That was a
Speaker 3: Class seven A state runner up last year. So I'm
Speaker 3: not downing Glenbard West. Will never doubt Glenbard West, but boy,
Speaker 3: that is a that is a load to start the season.
Speaker 3: When you talking about those three opponents, Steve, what are
Speaker 3: some of the other matchups that, as we said here,
Speaker 3: you know, you're kind of paying attention to as we're
Speaker 3: two days away.
Speaker 5: Well, I look at the the Hersey Warren game as
Speaker 5: an interesting development. You know, Hersey had a really strong
Speaker 5: season last year, still has not kind of been able
Speaker 5: to really climb the postseason hurdle quite yet, but have
Speaker 5: been churning out some good years year after year. They're
Speaker 5: going up against a Warren team that I think is
Speaker 5: flying under the radar a little bit. In the original
Speaker 5: Friday Night Drive rankings, I have them at a number eleven.
Speaker 5: I could easily justify having them a lot higher than that.
Speaker 5: I feel like they are a team that a lot
Speaker 5: of people aren't talking about up kind of up by
Speaker 5: the Wisconsin border. Maybe don't draw the attention that they should.
Speaker 5: But historically this is a program that puts together some
Speaker 5: really strong defenses. And when you match that up against
Speaker 5: a Hershey team that is over the last couple of years,
Speaker 5: has not really had much trouble putting points up on
Speaker 5: the board, I think that provides for an interesting contrast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, definitely that, and then we talked about
Speaker 3: like the Ducane Conference stepping out and and just at
Speaker 3: the depth of that conference. I mean you're seeing in
Speaker 3: week one with the teams that they're playing. I mean,
Speaker 3: Wheaton North has Providence coming there, you know, Saint Charles
Speaker 3: North playing Crete Monee.
Speaker 4: We mentioned Batavia Geneva. You know, in week two they
Speaker 4: played LaMotte.
Speaker 3: So uh, you know, Wheaton Wornville South plays Glenbard South,
Speaker 3: which is kind of one of the interesting matchup in
Speaker 3: that for both sides, in that Glenbard South comes from
Speaker 3: that Upstate eight which until this year was that closed league.
Speaker 3: I'm meant to see how a team, why Glenbard South
Speaker 3: is gonna fare, you know, when when they play a
Speaker 3: non conference game, which they don't get but until this year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a lot of interesting little wrinkles with that
Speaker 5: Upstate eight conference developing. Splitting into two divisions, you know,
Speaker 5: you know seven on a side, leads to the opportunity
Speaker 5: to play some non conference games, which is something for
Speaker 5: the last multiple years Upstate eight teams have not been
Speaker 5: able to do. See, you never know going into the playoffs,
Speaker 5: whether or not they're correctly battle tested. For years, South
Speaker 5: Elgin would run the table in that conference, for example,
Speaker 5: and then they would go into the playoffs and struggle
Speaker 5: because they hadn't seen the caliber of eight A competition
Speaker 5: that they needed to be prepared for the season. So,
Speaker 5: I mean, to their credit, South Elgin's response was, let's
Speaker 5: schedule Barrington in week one. Let's let's let's go out
Speaker 5: to Batavia in week two. So you know, that's a
Speaker 5: really nice job right there of taking the opportunity to say, hey,
Speaker 5: maybe our conference hasn't really set us up as well
Speaker 5: as it could to prepare us for a playoff run.
Speaker 5: Let's go out and test ourselves with the best teams
Speaker 5: that we're willing to find that need have those opportunities.
Speaker 4: So kudos to them.
Speaker 5: There are several other games in the Upstate eight as
Speaker 5: well where they've taken those non conference games and use
Speaker 5: them as an opportunity to say, hey, we think we're
Speaker 5: gonna have a good football team. Let's take those week
Speaker 5: one and two games as an opportunity to find out
Speaker 5: what we need to be to be where we want
Speaker 5: to be when November rolls around.
Speaker 3: You know, I know, before we get out of the area,
Speaker 3: I know we touched on a lot of games around
Speaker 3: Northern Illinois. Is there is there a game that's maybe
Speaker 3: in central Illinois or or south of Route Eady that
Speaker 3: that that you're really keeping an eye on Friday.
Speaker 5: Well, the one that I mean, it's it's not necessarily
Speaker 5: you know, in central or something. The one that really
Speaker 5: kind of stands out to me is, and I'm looking
Speaker 5: at it from a small school perspective, Newman Central Catholic
Speaker 5: trans travels to Princeton in Week one. Princeton's had been
Speaker 5: really outstanding for a while, you know, has gotten off
Speaker 5: to good starts and been a presence in the three
Speaker 5: A playoffs. Newman Central Catholic has been Newman Central Catholic,
Speaker 5: but maybe a little bit of a tiny step back.
Speaker 5: But that's a game that I look at as kind
Speaker 5: of a benchmark for what exactly we're going to expect
Speaker 5: out of those two programs moving forward. Because small school programs,
Speaker 5: obviously everybody has turnover from graduation, but sometimes small school
Speaker 5: programs have a ton so then you might have a
Speaker 5: lot of a lot of turn over in some of
Speaker 5: those smaller programs where teams almost look completely different. So
Speaker 5: those are the kinds of games that I look at
Speaker 5: in terms of what exactly do we have and another
Speaker 5: one that it kind of intrigues me out there. Although
Speaker 5: it was pretty lopsided last year when they played, I
Speaker 5: still like to look at that Cole City and Morris game.
Speaker 5: There are two schools that, you know, four A for
Speaker 5: Cole City, four A, five A for Morris.
Speaker 4: Morris.
Speaker 5: I think they lost some key cogs to graduation, but
Speaker 5: from everything I've heard, I feel like that's a team
Speaker 5: that is going to be able to do what they
Speaker 5: typically do in that program, which is reload. So measuring
Speaker 5: two consistent playoff programs against each other in week one,
Speaker 5: it's always something I have I keep a close eye
Speaker 5: on because you like to see where those teams are
Speaker 5: at right out of the gate.
Speaker 3: Princeton's an interesting program because you know, you can say
Speaker 3: it was small quote unquote small town or whatever. I
Speaker 3: think it's some big time town. In that program. You
Speaker 3: had a kid that I believe went on to Iowa.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was hurt. They now have Noel Laport who's
Speaker 3: going to Northwestern. So you know a lot of talent
Speaker 3: in Princeton, and that is a very interesting matchup playing
Speaker 3: New and Central Catholic right off the bat. So there's
Speaker 3: a lot of football going on, is what we're trying
Speaker 3: to say. We have a lot of just wanted to
Speaker 3: kind of bring people up to speed about what we
Speaker 3: have going on here. We talked about TV and Glenbard
Speaker 3: West Vinnie what he wants to hear a little bit
Speaker 3: more about that matchup and others around the Western Suburbs.
Speaker 3: A tape of podcasts with Joe Bennett's Western Suburbs podcast,
Speaker 3: j T Penalty.
Speaker 4: Eddie Criffy and Drake Landsman.
Speaker 3: They have a podcast looking at some of the games
Speaker 3: in the northwestern Illinois. I'm sure they mentioned Newman Princeton
Speaker 3: and that one as well. And then we kind of
Speaker 3: look ahead to Friday night and Steve You'll be on
Speaker 3: with Matt Rodehol from nine point thirty to eleven breaking
Speaker 3: down all the big matchups, kind of figuring out what
Speaker 3: it all means. You know, we'll have reports from our reporters, coaches, players,
Speaker 3: what have you. So, a lot of excitement and Illino
Speaker 3: high school football and a lot of excitement at Friday
Speaker 3: night Drive dot Com. We're gonna be covering something like
Speaker 3: forty games on Friday Night as well as Thursday and Saturday.
Speaker 3: I'd see before you get out, we get out of here.
Speaker 3: Any final thoughts, you know.
Speaker 5: When you just look at it and just really obviously
Speaker 5: really excited to have football back and just get into
Speaker 5: a situation where we can start to identify what these
Speaker 5: teams are all about. Like I said before, there's four
Speaker 5: hundred and ninety three of them that are trying to
Speaker 5: figure out what they are on Friday night, and that's
Speaker 5: all Friday and Saturday, I should say, they're always and
Speaker 5: there are always some great stories that emerge, maybe not
Speaker 5: in week one, but you start to see the signs
Speaker 5: of some teams that maybe you didn't have great high
Speaker 5: expectations for maybe breaking out and showing those Those are
Speaker 5: always my favorite stories, the teams that maybe haven't had
Speaker 5: a ton of success that show some signs that maybe
Speaker 5: they're about to turn a corner and do some great things.
Speaker 5: We had several of those stories last year. You mentioned
Speaker 5: one of them in Sandwich. There were several others that
Speaker 5: I could list in that scenario, and that that's what
Speaker 5: the season brings. It brings an opportunity to kind of
Speaker 5: forget about what happened last year, that's all in the past.
Speaker 5: Now to make your own story and create the best
Speaker 5: season that you possibly.
Speaker 3: Can no doubt, a lot of great stories you have
Speaker 3: to be told, and we're looking forward to telling them before.
Speaker 4: We get out of here.
Speaker 3: You can follow me at j WELG ninety six. You
Speaker 3: can follow the SEUs at the Seuss. You can follow
Speaker 3: Friday Night Drive on Twitter or Extra whatever you choose
Speaker 3: to call it at F and Drive. We're also on
Speaker 3: Facebook and Instagram. Until then, I'm Josh Welle with Steve Sussie.
Speaker 3: We'll see you Friday Night and next week. Do you
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