Schwiker, Gnison Krizak Rundio Bradley sponsors for Friday Night Drive. I'm Mike Krizak. If you've been injured, we are ready to take on the insurance company and get you to the end zone. We've recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for our clients. Visit g A N A SSI N dot com. What's up everyone, Welcome back to the Friday Night Drive podcast. I am Kyle Neighbors and we have made it to the bittersweet final weekend of the high school
football season. State championships are just a little more, well, no, not a little more. It is now forty eight hours less than forty eight hours away. Here it is Wednesday morning, November twenty second. Suits, how you do it? That's too bad? Getting ready for you know what?
I expect to be a pretty exciting state finals weekend. Yeah, it is looking like a good slate of games down in Normal will be there for the first time in a long time, Illinois State University hosting the state championship game after being at Champagne and Northern Illinois for the last decade plus and Champagne for a long time before that. Suits, What are you expecting this weekend in normal in terms of atmosphere, just how things they're gonna go. You
know, it will be interesting to find all those answers out. You know, got kind of a little bit of a sneak preview back in Week one when I went to see Et Saint Louis and Mount Carmel play. Obviously, you know, expecting bigger crowds, but there was a pretty good crowd in that Week one matchup between those two powerhouses, and you know, it felt cozy. It felt like if the you know, the stands were filled on both sides, you could get a lot of a noise and energy in that
place. And I'm interested to see if that comes to fruition. We've talked about this a lot before, you know, for you know all that you know that Champagne brought to the table. One thing that they could never get past was the fact that you really couldn't create an environment where it felt like, you know, there are lots of fans in the place, and it there wasn't a lot of electricity you know that you would hope to have for a state final. You know, I love the facility, but it's just
for this particular event. I think we might have found the sweet spot here. It's interesting to see if we have Zach checking in with us this morning live. He says, Hey, Stephen Kyle, I just wanted to wish you guys a happy Thanksgiving, save travels, and a wonderful week and of football ahead of us. Thank you for all your hard work this year. Thanks Zach. Everyone. If you're watching live with us this morning on Facebook or YouTube, please do jump into the comments. We'd love to hear from
you. Answer your questions here. Of course, follow us on Twitter or at Kyle Neighbors at the SEUs. You can find us of our Friday Night Drive account at ben Drive. Also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as well. Give this video a thumbs up. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're live with you guys throughout this season now SEUs, we got Michael Dwojack going to be joining us here who covers the Catholic League and the
suburban Catholic Confidence for us in a little bit. But we're gonna start and work our way up from one A all the way up to Class A A H and then that one Class one A title game. Here we get a rematch between Lena Winslow and Camp Points Central. What are your first thoughts when
we got this matchup again. You know, when we got the master up again, you immediately kind of went back to last year's game and thought about what the differences were between the two teams and how that might a just heading into this game. You know, I just and I really don't have a lot of statistical justification for this, but my gut feelings is that we're gonna get a different game this time. I just think that Camp Point Central will
we'll give it a little bit better of a swing. It never seemed it able to find their putting in that last year's game if you went back and looked at it, and I did earlier this week, weren't able to sustain a drive of basically longer than three minutes of game time the fourth quarter. And you know that's not everything, but against Lena, you have to be
able to keep football for a little while. I mean, you got to keep it away from home a little bit, sustain some drives and kind of, you know, maybe try to get them out of what they're most comfortable doing. And Camp was never able to do that last year. But for some reason, I think this team has a little bit different juice to it. That is, Camp Point Central has been extremely impressive getting out of the box in the postseason. Has jumped out to substantial leagues in pretty much every
one of their games. And I'm talking about like a first half lead. I'm talking about like the first five minutes. So I think if they could establish themselves early on in the game, get themselves comfortable, I think we might have a better game on our hands here. Darn check it in this Morning says the only way you can beat in a winslow is with the pass and a good defense to stop the run. Rocker Luther and expose them in their playoff game, and Chicago Hope exposed them even more. I was looking
through Camp Point Central statistics. A really run heavy team got two running backs at about or two guys with should say running back, two guys at about a thousand yards each. Most of their touchdowns there the starting quarterback there, I don't have the name in front of me, so I don't want to get it wrong, but only about less than fifty past at ten I wanted to say it was seven touchdowns, so they're not a past heavy team.
But do you think Campoint Central can maybe go to the air a little bit more after what you saw Chicago hope do to try in and chain that script from last year? You know, I think when you get to this situation, yeah, I understand what's being said here, but you have to be careful to not try to deviate too much from what you actually are. Yeah. Maybe they maybe they maybe I might sprinkle a little bit more in and you know, try to try to utilize that maybe a little more than they
have. But like I said, you have to be really careful to go, well, wait a minute, these guys are susceptible to the past. We've only we've thrown less than fifty passes all year, But we think we can yeah yeah, particularly yeah, particularly a small school level like where one a tow A. You don't have huge drops like these kids probably haven't practiced like the passing game much all season long. We're now we're fourteen weeks into
the regular season here. These kids have been going since early August. All the seven seven on seven would probably last time if Camp Point In Central participated in any of those over the summer, like they really focused on a passing game so while yeah, there's a possibility to take a few shots, I wouldn't think that they're gonna have to. I wouldn't expect there to be a lot of passing in this game, Suits, and you were saying, yeah, I wouldn't either, you know. Like I said, I think the
Camp Point Central's focus is going to be. Hey, like we didn't put our best foot forward last year. Let's let's concentrate on what we need to do to execute what we do instead of trying to, you know, fit that proverbials square peg into the round hole just to try to, you know, exploit what Lenham might not be good at. Do what you do well, and if that's not good enough, it's not good enough. But you know, trying to alter in a grandiose way for you know, one football
game doesn't ever seem to work out very well. Bears Bears Insider Podcast checking in here, Rick, This is Happy Thanksgiving, Kyle. See you Tuesday morning for another Bears catastrophic loss. Be well, Suis. I'll tell you what I did a fist pup. I completely forgot that the Bears didn't play until Monday night this week. And while I love State football, I think both of us full agree, like you are absolutely getting dead, Like we're both dead on Sunday, so not having to worry about a Bears game.
I yes, so yes, Rick, we will be back with you on Tuesday morning and talk about Bears losing to Minnesota. I'm taking this off track a little bit right here, but has there ever been a team where the worst winning percentage that has more national profile games where they're the only option to watch football? I mean, it seems like the Bears are on a Thursday night or a Monday night or Sunday night like half of the season, and
it's incredible considering the quality of the product. I just it blows my mind. Who made that? Well, you know it is a good sitcom, So you got that going for you? I guess yeah, I suppose. All right, let's go to two way. We've got Wilmington and Athens here and Seuss. I don't really know how to say this other than the fact
that I come into this game thinking Wilmington. When you look at the competitive results results, Wilmington handles morea forsythe handily Morrows Foresyde beat Athens earlier this season. Wilmington just playing really well, right, now I have the Wildcats are
a fairly substantial favorite in this game. I don't think that's off base, but I think you have to be really, really careful to look at that Wilmington MOREA of Forestide game and say Wilmington's five touchdowns better than morea of Wareside. I think that really Wilmington won that game, and they deserve to win that game. And I think if they played multiple times, Wilmington would probably win more often than not. But I think that's a classic example of a
snowball game. And what I what I mean by what I say there is, you know, one mistake snowballed into another mistake, and then it snowballed into another mistake, and then all of a sudden, Moroa is in complete chase mode, where Wilmington has a pretty good idea of what they're going to be doing pretty much all the time. So that that football game did not materialize in the way that I thought it would. I was a little bit more confident that I know you were, and I'm not trying to you know,
score points here that no un on me I deserve. Yeah, that Wilmington would win that football game. I did think they would win it coming in, but I did not expect them to win in the fashion that they did. I expected Wilmington to struggle a lot more in the secondary against Moroa than they did. They stepped up big, they answered the bell, you know. But for this game, I think it really comes down to execution.
They both like to do similar things. I do think Wilmington is the favorite in this game, but I'm not convinced it's going to be a runaway. Like I seem to think a lot of people do. Athan's can do some things a lot of I will say. The rushing numbers are impressive. They really are. And like I said, I think I think they kind
of mirror each other in a lot of ways. And you know, like Wilmington, if they get a little bit of momentum, you know, like I said, I don't think Wilmington is gonna run away and hide here. I do think they're the favorite to win the football game. I think it's just gonna be what you kind of expect from two way based running football teams. And you know, if Athens plays well, Wilmington makes some mistakes,
we might have a football game. All right, Let's go ahead and move on to Class three A Byron versus Mount Carmel, downstate Mount Carmel obviously in this matchup here, soons you know, offhand here, I'm trying to think odds on favorite for highest scoring game of the weekend. Yeah, I think so. I think this is one of those situations where Mount Carnival comes in. It's a substantial underdog in the game, I think, but the only way that Mount Carnival can win it is to get it into a shootout mode
and and hope that they can just trade scores. So that's going to create an environment where both these teams can clearly score points. So it's gonna be up tempo, it's gonna be the teams are going to go up to the line, you know, thinking that they can score it on pretty much any play if they run from scrimmage. So that's going to create an environment where I think we're gonna see a lot of points scored in this one. But I also think it's a situation where if Byron kind of gets control of that
scoreboard, it might get ugly too. This is like, yea, we know, we know exactly what Byron's gonna do in this game, right, Like, yeah, we know what the Tigers are going to look like. What's so fascinating to me is Mount Carla On the other side, I mean, you got over three thousand yards of rushing offense at a three A school.
But the other thing when I say at three A school is because you have a starting quarterback who also attempted well, I think two hundred and four I think, if I got it right here, two hundred and four attempts in the season, seventeen hundred passing yard, fifteen touchdown. That's a really balanced offense at the three A level. Yeah, it is, and it's one of those situations where you kind of look at what system has done over
the course of the year. He's the kind of guy that makes you really nervous, especially at the at the three A, you know, the smaller school level, because he'll make a lot of plays just out of nothing. You know, you can school, and you can scheme, and you can do all these things, but sometimes you've just got an athlete who you know, draws one up and the dirt and goes and that's kind of what we
have here. He's capable of making some plays out of absolutely nothing. So that's something that Byron has to have to put a lot of attention on and make sure that they've got him accounted for, and that's easier said than done. So, you know, I think, like I said before, Byron's gonnat score cam Mount Carmel match that at the level Byron scores at, I'm not sure no Carnival's defense is going to give up points in this game.
Byron has shown the propensity to not only score points but shut the opponent down as well. So I think we might get you know, I don't know we can have a consistent shootout over four quarters between these two teams, but Byron's not gonna relent. I'll say that much. Can't Mount Carmel matching. Yeah, that's that's what it comes down to it. We have a We had an early leader in the clubhouse for my favorite name of the weekend, Shade louder Milk. Yeah, I like that one, Shade louder Milk.
All right, let's go ahead, let's keep moving on here. We're going along pretty quickly. Here, let's keep more popping along here. I'm pulling up four A. Here we've got Saint Lawrence versus Rochester. This is gonna be a fun one. Saint Lawrence. I'm gonna go ahead and bring Michael Dwojack in now, who covers the Chicago Catholic League and the eas Subourban Catholic Conference for Friday night drive. Michael, how you doing, man good?
How are you guys? Wonderful? So Saint Lawrence, what can you tell us about you know what you're hearing for the Vikings in this matchup against Rockchester. Well, we all expected Saint Lawrence to be here, right, like we all had winning all these games and that kind of sad being Icy Catholic
winning on a blocked extra point against Being Academy in the semi finals. I think this team is just you know, I talked to coach Nissan and starting at the season, he talked to you, you know they most coaches say say the same things. You know, I've watched these guys grow, you
know, I've been with them for the last four years. Like he talked about how this senior group was his first, you know, recruiting class and that kind of stuff, and you know, you kind of take that with the grain of Soldier're like, well, every coach is going to be excited about their kids and that kind of stuff. But as the season has gone on, this team has just shown that they know how to win games. And I think that's really important because you got an all stay running back like
Aaron Ball who can just you know, run the ball. You can figure out different ways to kind of score. And you've got a quarterback who can you know, if he can throw the pass, but he can also run, and he's running in key situations for Saint Lawrence all season long. And you've got a motivated group at this point. I mean, just hearing what Neison talked about, like the no one expected them to be here at this
point. I think that's fair to say. And then I think they're just riding the momentum at this point and they aren't really going to change much as to you know, what they've done. They've found ways to beat Icy Catholic, whom many considered to be the favorite to win the state title. They'd be Leian Academy on a on a blocked extra kick in double overtime. This
team has the experience, they know how to do it. Now is just about you know, doing it against an unfamiliar full La Rochester where you obviously can get tapeing that kind of stuff. But maybe you haven't seen that kind of style all season long. Yeah, sus, I mean this Saint Lawrence team. You know, they faced Sween Saint Francis, they had a loss there, they got to win over Providence, they had to win over Bennett, they lost to Saint Rita. It's not like they haven't faced quality teams.
I don't think it's stretched to say, though, that this is gonna be the best team. This Rochester team is gonna be the best team they faced all year. Yeah. I don't think that's that's a stretch either, especially when you consider, you know that IC Catholic was limited a little bit in their personnel when Saint Lawrence won that game. So I think that would
be that the team that I would compare the two. You know, when I've looked at Saint Lawrence over the Court of the Week Michael touchdown a little bit there. I think the biggest credit that they've they have to their ledger this year is that they've just figured out ways to win football games. They may not be all that pretty, I mean, but when I look back at like what they did in the regular season schedule other than Providence, the
win over Providence before they got the playoffs. They had not beat a playoff bound team, So I didn't know where they were at really honestly heading into the postseason. Because while most teams you can play that CCL card and say this is the schedule that they played, Saint Lawrence didn't really benefit from that as much as many of the teams in the conference because they played some of
the more struggling programs in the league as part of that schedule. So I didn't know where they were at heading into the postseason, to be completely honest with you. But it speaks to they you know, their determination, the way that they've won games here in the postseason, winning the double overtime game against Wheaton Academy, winning the game in the final minute against Icy Catholic.
This is a team that believes they've they've got a way to figure it out, and they're gonna have to get creative here with Rochester because this is a pretty good team. Yeah, tell us a little bit about this Rochester team. Well, I think what what comes down to it, Like a lot
of people think about Rochester, they think about that high powered offense. They think about the team that is just gonna ZiT down the field by throwing the football, running the football, doing whatever they have to do, and scoring a bunch of points. That is definitely true about this team. But I think the difference for Rochester as opposed to other years that they've come down here with teams is this is a This might be one of the better defenses that
Rochester has ever had. They you know, they've only allowed you know, more than two touchdowns to three opponents this year, and for all that Rochester is, that's pretty uncommon. You have a lot of scores that come out of Rochester where they won sixty three to twenty eight or you know, fifty two to twenty five, or they tend to give up you know, some points along the way as well. But this defense hasn't letting it happen.
And then another little wrinkle to Rochester. They just heading into the playoffs, they got Parker Gillespie back on the offensive side of the football. Gillespie missed the first seven games of the season with a knee injury, and I had a friend say that Gillespie had even available to them, could have literally lined up almost anywhere on Rochester's offense and it would be surprising to see him run
the ball throw the ball, catch the ball in this championship game. And you know, a couple of people have actually dropped the Hank Baby comparison on him. I mean, that's that's pretty pretty lofty expectations. Yeah, maybe not to the maybe not to the same quite level, but the same type of mold of players that he can do a lot of different things is really dangerous in a lot of ways. So that's kind of another wrinkle to this
team. You know, the combination of the defense and getting Parker Gillespie back makes this Rochester team really really scary. We're in a potential opponent heading into this final game. 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, guys, make sure everyone who is watching us live today, if you can do us a favor, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. We appreciate that. Of course, stick to Friday Nightdrive dot com all week long. We got a ton of preview content coming up there throughout the word that's going up throughout the week. We already have one A and two way breakdown from
the SEUs up there. Three A and four A will be coming up rest of the day, and then five A through eight A dropping during the day Darren Thanksgiving and on Friday as well, of course, we'll have full coverage from the state finals. We've got six guys going down on Friday. We got eight guys down there. On Saturday, a lot of coverage coming your
way from the state championships. And on five A or on Saturday more, we'll start with a very very intriguing matchup in Classify A between Joliet Catholic and Nazareth Michael, what are you hearing about this one? I'm really curious to see, you know, what is NAS gonna do this? Like I feel like we've you know, always done the superlative about them, you know, two and four last season winning a state championship. But are they really going to go z and for it, you know, to start the year and
win the state championship? And I mean, at this point, you just have to be confident, don't you If you're Nas, like you just have a great passing game. Logan Malichick is playing probably one of the better playoff performances in the entire state. You just being able to throw the ball everywhere, making key plays. It's not like NAS hasn't been in anyone you know good, you know, in the playoffs. Obviously winning against Career Rich to
start the season. You take down Carmel, you take down Weens Saint Francis, and you hold on to the at I mean, they just have all the confidence right now of just you know, being able to do whatever they want offensively pretty much. And now you've got a defense that has shown that they can, you know, make key plays to stop you know, high
powered opponents. You you were able to stop the triple option against Prairie Ridge, You're able to stop an elite quarterback in Saint Francis, and obviously all the talent that Carmel has. So I mean, if you're NAS, you
have to feel great right now. Obviously, you if you're a coach, you're probably doing the one to know mindset and you're doing all the you know, the cliches, but it's deep down you're probably feeling great because you just are on a on a tear right now that you just need to finish that up Saturday morning, and you are just gonna make the You're gonna make history
there. And then on the other side, as soon as you got a Juliet Catholic team that's playing extremely well here in the postseason wins against Peoria, Triad, Morris, Providence, those first three in real blowout fashion. Still going back to that Morris game, and I know Morris had some injuries coming into that game, but still very impressive. The way JCA is playing right now, sus this put up all comes down to it or this all adds up to a really fun matchup on Saturday morning. Yeah, it should.
And I mean even when you look at the Providence game that that score is not really kind of indicative of how easily juliett Catholic kind of controlled that game. You know, Profdence scored first, but after that it was pretty much JCA all the way into you know, late into the ballgame when Providence put a few more points on the board to make it appear closer than it was.
This has been a different football team since we started the playoffs. I know I personally was kind of questioning whether what was going to happen with them after let's be honest, I thought it was kind of a lethargic performance from Juliet Catholic in Week nine against Saint Ignatius. They didn't really put their best foot forward, so I didn't know where this team was, and they answered that with authority. It's kind of been an old school Julia Catholic type of
playoff run. You know, let's lean on the running game and our defense to try to do what we can do. But they can also sprinkle in a little bit of that passing game with Adrian Washington, who's probably one of the more productive wide receivers the Hilltoppers have had, and you know, I can safely say maybe a decade or two, I mean, really is capable of stretching the field and making some plays. I can't think of the last
time Julia Katholic had a receiver with the statistics that he's had. So, you know, Joli Kathlic gets a lot of love for, you know, defensive lineman Dylan Johnson. But I think the interesting thing about Julia Katholic's defense is while Johnson's drawing a lot of attention, drawing some double teams and allowing the other Jola Catholic players to kind of step up and make a play. They have a lot of guys on that defense that are willing and capable of
making those plays. I can't even I could make you a list of names, and you know, six or seven guys that could potentially step out of the shadows and make big plays. That's the thing that I think is kind of the undercurrent of the Joli Catholic departs. Dylan's great, but these other
guys are really getting the job done too. You go back starting here and go back to one A quickly you go Lina Winslow than Wilmington, two A Byron, and three A Rochester in four A. So far, I feel like we've had at least moderate too, you know, fairly substantial favorites in each class. This is the first one, guys, where I'm having a real tough time picking this. Are you guys on the same page or do you guys have a better feel for it than I do? Yeah, I
don't really know what I feel like. This game and maybe the Loyola Lincoln Way East game are probably the tougher games to choose, just based on you know, I feel like NASA has kind of shown you the entire year that you know, you can kind of them on if you want to, but they're going to find a way to win a game. And Joy Kathleck is at a different level right now. They're just playing at a different you know.
And I saw them earlier in the season against sant Ariita. I thought they played well against sant Erita, but I thought it was kind of like, well, maybe this is like, you know, a quote unquote year for them, they make the semi finals or the quarterfinals or whatever. But they've obviously taken it to a different level right now, and I'm really curious to see, you know, can Juliet Tamplick stop Logan Malichick. I feel
like that's a huge matchup that you got to figure out. Can you know, can that pass defense really stop him from making big plays, you know, both in the air and on the ground, like he can run the ball too, and really you know, take advantage of those opportunities. So yeah, I think that's a very close matchup. If I had to choose, I'd probably go Nas because you just got to ride the hot hand at
this point and go for the history books. But I don't know, it's probably down to a point or two for me if I was, you know, setting the spread or anything like that, sus I want to every time, I want to say I'm taking JCA in this game. I picked your logan Malichuck dropping a dime into the back right corner of the end zone against Prairie Ridge in the first round, and I go, am I really gonna am I gonna pick against that? It's really tough right now for this one.
Yeah, I mean I I have made my pick, and of course, if you're an Athro fan, you gotta like it because I've been long about Nazareth multiple weeks this season, and I picked Joey Cat Now, unlike in many times, you know, during the regular season, I usually just put the pick down. For the finals, I put a score and I did the old cop out when you can't really make a decision. I picked it as a one point decision in favor of Joel a Catholic, because that's
genuinely what I feel like it is. It's I mean, it could really kind of come down to that. But you know, like I'm not really joking when I say I've been wrong about Nazareth all along, you know, and maybe it's it's me trying to you know, backtrack on the fact that when we started the season I had Nazareth as a top five team, and even after seeing them in Week one, I was like, I still think
there's a lot of talent there. I think they can and then when they dropped oh and four, I started to, you know, doubt whether or not I was seeing what I thought I you know, what I thought they could be. You know there it's They're such a perplexing story. They're obviously very, very talented, but you still can't ignore the fact that they've lost five games this season. Regardless of the fact that you know that it's com
against quality opponents, it's still lost five games that happened somehow. So we've been a different team now, playing a lot better. But this I'll be disappointed if this is not a great football game. And usually I don't I don't go that far with one, but boy, it certainly looks intriguing just looking at it on paper and with all the knowledge that we have about these
teams. This morning, Class six, say we get a match up with Kerry Grove and East Saint Louis. This is a rematch of twenty twenty one East Saint Louis obviously back in the title game, lost to Carry Grove in an absolutely epic title game back in twenty twenty one, what many considered to be the best state championship game that's ever been played. It's certainly in the conversation, then, last year East Saint Louis really pounds per Ridge, another
team from the Fox Valley Conference that runs a triple option. They poleing the Prairie Ridge in that game run away for the state championship. What do you think, du It's like this is a different Et Saint Louis team than it was a year ago. Obviously on the offensive line as a big difference, lost that entire starting unit. Different on the defensive side too. They do have a few names back, but you're gonna have a lot of kids that
are not that have are seeing the triple option for the first time. Yeah, it's I have had a hard time kind of getting my finger on exactly where East Saint Louis is on a week to week basis. Some weeks they look like they are capable of, you know, beating anyone that you line up across from them, and then other times it almost feels like they're kind of toying with the opposition for fun. You know, I don't really know.
I know they're exceptionally talented and like you said, some different faces in different places, but still when push comes to shove, they have players with experience in big time games against quality opponents. I don't think that's a really big factor that I guess the thing that is most interesting to me heading into this game is I'd like to be in the in the uh I guess the war room or the lab to see what Brad Seberg is cooking up here.
I just felt like in that matchup two years ago, there were a lot of little things that if you weren't like keyed in on them, that Carrie Grove did so well and just you know, did the did the little thing that I always hear like football coaches talk about in games where they pulled off what a you know, what is most perceived to be a giant upset.
Sometimes you win those games in centimeters rather than yards. And it felt like Carrie Grove did every little thing that they could do to give themselves an opportunity to win that football game, executed. Did it well? Can they replicate it? I don't know, but I'm just interested to see what wrinkles Carrie Girl brings to the table to try to combat the skill sets that obviously East
Saint Louis has in their bag. Yes, like I said, some different names on East Saint Louis compared to a year ago, or especially two years ago. And I went up to try and pull up the eh the stature of East St. Louis from the IHSA website and got a dead link. Yeah, you're shaking your right now. Yeah. So for let's for people in you know, Northern Illinois that haven't paid as much attention to East Saint Louis this year. Can you compare them the last couple of years. What's
what's similar, what's different? Well, I think that the constant is the quarterback Pops Battle. He's the kind of kid that has seen his game develop obviously, he has has always had kind of weapons on the outside that he can go to and stretch the field with. Jesse Watson is kind of the leading receiver of that group this year. But like always, if you put too much attention on Watson, there's a number of other guys out there that
can make big explosive plays too. I think the interesting thing about this This East St. Louis offense is tay Ryan Martin is the leading rusher for this team, but he's not the listed starter and sometimes he will go long stretches without playing in games, and I'm not sure what the reason is for that, to be honest with you. Sometimes they deploy him, you know, you know, one series on, one series off, or maybe he doesn't play in the first quarter. It was the same thing that happened in the
Mount Carnival game. He didn't pop up in that game until fairly deep into the context. So I don't really know what that is right now and why that's the case. It was also another reason why hoping to get a look at their stats because I wanted to see how it broke down this year in terms of carries. But obviously wasn't there, so I don't know for sure.
But they they can score on a nine, but they can also hit pockets where you can make life difficult for them because they want to go, go, go, go go. So if you if you have a team that kind of maybe stops a couple of plays in a row. They're a very rhythm based team. When they're in rhythm, they're awesome When they when they kind of fall out of that rhythm, they can get a little a little sluggish and loggie on it. So I think the biggest key for East
Saint Louis in this game very very talented defense. Can they stick to those keys. Will it be the things that they struggled with two years ago against Kerry Grove, or will it be a dominating performance where they seem to have figured out most of the nuances of that offense as they did in beating preer
Ridge last year. Which one of those shows up different personnel in a lot of positions, but also you know some guys that know what they're doing, that have a lot of experience in it too, So you know, you can get an effort all over the spectrum from East Saint Louis, and it's sometimes it's kind of hard to predict which one of those teams is going to
show up. Yeah, And the one thing I will say, we spent a lot of time there kind of dissecting East Saint Louis, and I think that's more so because we know what we're going to get out of Harry Grove. We know the triple option. They're playing tremendously well on defense right now, And honestly, they are executing their triple option offense about as well as I've seen them do it, you know, either them or Prairie Ridge when each of these team have made it to a state championship game. This is
about as well as I've seen it executed. So they're going to be on top of their game against East Saint Louis. It's gonna be a fun one. But let's go ahead and move on. Class seven A. Mount Carmel Downers Grove North, Michael, you saw Mount Carmel on Saturday in that state similar state semi final against Batavia. Uh, you know, all three of us expected the Caravan to win. I don't think any of us would have predicted that margin. No, that was just a Mount Carlos playing at a
different level. Even the Batavia coach said that he's never you know, they've pled a lot of teams around Illinois and they just haven't seen a team like that. They're just, you know, talented at every level. They're just talented at every position, and they just know how to win big games.
At this point. I mean, Darien Deprix is doing ridiculous stuff like scoring four touchdowns in the first fourteen minutes, he's breaking like three tackles and somehow turning what was supposed to be like a two yard you know loss into like a what was it seventy four yard game? Like he's just a multi talented player. You got Jack Elliott has stepped into the quarterback position and he just
looks even better than Blady Dolling did last year. And that defense is just so smothering and you know, they're always around you, they're always making plays. Maybe bad thing you can say about the defenses. They kind of created some late penalties and that allowed Batavia to drive last week and some you know, some late hits that probably you know, Jordan Lynch was not happy about it and is definitely you know, working on right now. But this Mount
Carmel team is playing at a different level. They talked about that Loyola loss, how it motivated them, how that you know, they felt like they could have win that game, and now they're on a mission to go out and just show the rest of the state that, you know, they are one of the best teams in the state. They get a match up against Downards Grove North. Downards Grove North playing very well this postseason, so there's no battle performance at a high level. But this is a tough, tough
matchup here. You know. I guess the one thing that I can say for downers Grove North going into this game is they can still enter this contest with a lot of confidence. They've played good teams, beat good teams along this playoff route, a particularly dominant performance last week in the semifinals and beating the top seed in the bracket normal community and getting there. A little wrinkled to this, and I know weather had a lot to do with this.
Last year these two teams met in the second round of the playoffs. It was a twenty four to six win for Mount Carmel. The downers Grove North was in that game. Now, granted, like I like, and it's important to point out weather was a big factor that weekend. It was one of it was. It was pretty bad that week. But you know four,
downers Grove North, they're not They're not immune to this. They know they're heading into this game as a giant underdog, but they have to feel good about the way they're playing heading into it, and if they can come out and do some positive things early in the game, you never know, I mean, put some wind under their sails and try to make something happen. All that being said, Big Mountain decline no doubt about it, because
I mean, I don't know. I can't remember the last time I felt like a team was playing as well in the postseason as I believe Mount Cardinal is playing right now there. And you know the coaching staff for Donald's Grove North is preaching this well. I actually I shouldn't say that. There's two tax as a coach. I feel like you could you could take here. You could take the worthy underdog role no one believes in us, or you could take it as Yeah, Mount Cardmell's a heavy favorite. If we go
out there and play scared, we're gonna lose. So let's just go out. We're playing in a state title game. No one expected us to be here. Let's go out and just rip it. I wonder what approach they're taking here, because I think I would take the ladder there right, like, just let's pull everything out of the bag. If I'm the coaching staff, let's draw up anything we can and let's just go out and have fun, and you know, see if we can catch lightening the bottle and knock
the caravan off bounced early in this game. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of different ways that they could go with this, and like it's you know, being in the situation like this, playing a team like Mount Carmel, there's not a lot of wrong answers here because the expectation level is you're gonna have to do something spectacular to win the football game to begin with, so you can maybe take a few more risks than you would ordinarily, but
you know, had in hand, Mount Carmel is really a machine right now. And it's like, I look back at the way they're doing things and that what they did to Batavia really kind of floored me a little bit, to be completely honest with you, not that I didn't think that Mount Carmel was gonna win that game, but I certainly thought it was going to be significant more competitive, you know, because I look back to the way that you know, Batavia played with Lincoln Way East back early in the season,
and the fact that Batavia was playing pretty dark well heading into that game, and to see what Mount Carmel did to them in that situation just was really not that I was not that I'm surprised that Mount Carmel is a really, really good football team, but it was eye opening at what level we're talking about here, and that's that's where it really comes down to for me.
Uncle, You got anything else on this one? No, I mean the only thing I could say from downers Grove North is maybe look at the Loyola tape. I mean, look at what Loyola did. Obviously, I know that's a Loyola obviously has different players and downers Grove North has obviously if we got the size and that kind of stuff, but Loyola really did is the only team maybe eastt Louis did pretty well do in Week one, but Loyala is the only team that really has given Mount Carmel any sort of struggle this
year. And they did a really good job of just moving the ball down the field, and the way they were able to do it was pretty much, you know, not letting Mount Carmel score on key, you know, third and fourth downs in their own territory. And whether you whether that's you know, boxing up the middle and not letting Darry in the pre getting a couple of yards here or there, or whether it's you know, making sure that you're not letting Darry in the pre catch the ball and you know,
kind of zoning in on him. I mean, I think if you're a coach, they've probably done this at this point. But you look at the Loyola tape and you just see, you know, defensively, you can stop Mount Carmel if you you know, all the right play obviously, and you also just look at, you know, taking Darie in the pre out of this game. They got Jack Elliott. He can run the ball pretty well as well. But if you take away the pre you take away a really
big component of the Mount Carmel offense. All right, guys, one game to get to here before we sign off, and that is the Class A State championship game between Lincoln Way East and Loyola. We talked earlier about about
our favorite game for highest scoring game of the week. I think this is probably the easiest pick for lowest scoring game of the week, going in into it at least lowest total, I should say, sus well, I can't see anyway that this this one turns into a high scoring back and forth to bear it just it would go against the grain of both of these two teams
and their hallmarks. You know, I've seen Lincoln Way East quite a few times over the last couple of weeks at least in pieces, and Lincolna East has had some really really good defensive units in the past, and they've they've been very difficult to move the football against. The ease that this team seems to play defense with right now against teams that usually come in with a pretty high offensive pedigree is really really, I guess, eye opening more so than
anything else. It's a very very good defense. And for somebody to hang a bunch of points on that, I don't, I just don't. I don't see it. I just I mean, you'd have to You'd have to line up some really really incredible offensive players all in the same place just to be able to do that, because this is a great defense at all three levels, particularly on the defensive line, which doesn't blitz a lot, but
seems to find itself in opponents backfields on every single play. It's I mean, I kind of sometimes I kind of want to ask, like, you know, one of their defensive linemen if they want to, you know, put a chair back there. I mean, they're so comfortable in the opposing teams backfields, so it's a really really great defense. The offense is a little bit more lunch bucket. We're going to do what we have to do to get past you. But they've even shown signs of doing a little bit
more now over the last couple of weeks. So I think Lego Waste isn't a really good place for this game, is it? Is it good enough place to beat Loyola? I don't know. I'll be completely honest with you. I don't know, Michael, what are you What are you hearing on the other side of here? What are you hearing from the Ramblers? I mean, Loyola probably had it's I wouldn't say it's worst win of the season, but I mean they were down fourteen to three against York like that.
That was the first time, I mean, we've talked about this Loyola defense how elite it's been all season, obviously comparing it with Lincoln Wize for the whole year, But that was the first time this defense looked like, oh wait, someone is actually able to do something against this defense. Falling behind fourteen to three, So I mean, I'm really interested to see how that defense responds. I mean, you've seen a couple of times this season where
you've gotten mixed reviews. I mean you've had you know, the defense kind of have a slow start and then they regroup and the course they do what Loyola does, take away the run and then strangle you there and then take away the pass. But you've also had moments like Mount Carmel where they started
the game with four or three big stops to start the game. So I'm really curious to see how this defense defense come out, because if it plays the way it did against Mount Carmel, I don't think Lincoln Way East will do a good job of moving the ball down the field. But I think, you know, if it plays the way it did against York or against you know, Saint Rita earlier in the year, Lincoln Waste would need to take advantage of that pretty early and take advantage of that and then offensively,
I mean that all comes down to Ryan Fitzgerald. I mean, he's just the quarter he's stepped in for Jake Sturney. I think he's you know, Jake Sturney was a really good player and is doing a lot of great stuff at Colcate right now as a freshman. But I think Ryan Fitzgerald is playing
at a higher level than even Sturney was playing at. He's making the right calls, he's making great pass he's he's not afraid to run the ball, and he's showing a lot of confidence this entire season where Loyal might struggle offensively. Drew McPherson, they're starting running back, is dealing with a little bit of an injury. So obviously we won't know anything about that until you know,
game time. No one's gonna give us any updates or anything like that, but you know, is he able to Is he able to play because he's not only you know, their top rusher, but he's a really big, you know, receiver for them as well, being able to kind of come out from the back. So, you know, New York game was really interesting just to see, you know, Loyol in a position that they've
never really been in this entire season. But you also saw Loyola kind of regroup in a way that they'll need to do if they want to compete with Lincoln. Ways to Sarty, yeah, the Loyola score or the score against York gave me a little bit of pause, but I'm still taking the Ramblers to win this game. I do think it's gonna be really low scoring. In one of those where if you know one team, if one team has a put break, just one big play for a touchdown, it could be
the difference in this game. But I'm taking the Ramblers suits, how about you. I'm also taking Loyola once again. It was another one of those situations where I was picking scores for this game, and the first first time that I put a score down, I think I put ten to seven, and that I changed my mind, and I joke, I jokingly put it forward to before finally settling on settling on what I thought it would be.
But I, like you said, I think this game may hinge on one team breaking a big play here, and then it might actually become a special teams battle it has before. I mean, this game has come down to field goal differences in the past. They have a lot of history against one another, and none of those games has either of the two teams been able
to clearly separate themselves from the other. There's really no way that you could really make a strong case for this game being anything other than a low scoring defensive struggle based on what's happened in the past. Michael, you taking the Ramblers as well. Yeah, I had a fourteen to thirteen score because I just wasn't able to choose, so I just went loyal of fourteen to third team. But if it does come down to special teams, it'll be really
interesting. Obviously, Loyola has an all state kicker and Mikey bake Or he can you know, make it pretty far and has done a really good job as a wide receiver as well. But I just think based on what we've seen from Loyola, they've know, they've found ways to win. They beat they held down to beat Mount Carmel in Week nine obviously to win the CCLS
CC Blue. They found a way to come back deal with some adversity against York, and I think they find a way against Lincoln way He's I think that offense has been pretty prolific this season, and even when the defense maybe hasn't played as well as it has all year, you know, I think the offense has found ways to make plays. And I know Lincoln way He's defense is probably the best, if not the second best defense they'll see all
season. But this offense has me confident that they'll find a way to make a player two in order to get over the hill here. Make sure you follow Michael on x at m DWO Jack ninety four. Also follow him on Instagram and threads. He'll be with us down in normal all weekend for coverge of the State finals. We got to get out of here, though,
sus Can you give us some final thoughts headed into the weekend? You know, when we look at this weekend coming in, I think the one thing that's really striking to me is that it kind of feels like we're running it back from previous state championship weekends. Here, twelve of the sixteen teams have been at least in at least one state championship game since twenty nineteen. So
think about that for a minute. Like, usually you've got a little bit of turnover here, but there's really a lot of teams that you're accustomed to seeing in these state championship games, and with that comes the experience of having gone through this before. It's not the same kids, but it's the same coaching stats, it's the same programs, so they know how to deal with the situation that comes with the state championship game. So I expect a lot
of good football game games this year. There's obviously going to be some nerves that teams have to work out to be playing in state championship games. But like I said, there's a lot of teams that have been there, done that before, So I think they're going to come out here with purpose, and I think we're going to get off a lot of good football games. I think, particularly on Saturday, I think we could be on tap for a lot of fun. Sounds like a great reason to stick to Friday Night
Drive dot Com all week and long. We're gonna have a ton of coverage from the state or the State Final down in normal for now that we're gonna go ahead and sign off well, Thank Michael Giojack for joining us this morning. Here. Of course, once again, he covers the Chicago Catholic Conference at East Suburban Catholic Conference for Friday Night Drive dot Com. You can find all of his content there again. Follow us on Twitter at fn Drive,
on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram as well. Go to Friday Night Drive all weekend. We'll be back with you guys early next week here on YouTube to break down the state championship games. Everyone have a great week and enjoy the State Final. We'll talk to you guys next week. Schwiker, Ganison, Krizak, Rundio Bradley sponsors to Friday Night Drive. I'm Mike Krizak. If you've been injured, we are ready to take on the insurance company and
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