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