Football: September 2008 Archives

Brad Geever almost made it a repeat performance. The junior quarterback was on his way to a 77-yard touchdown run on Friday night against Joliet Township on the same bootlege play, albeit this time to right, that he scored a 92-yard touchdown on against Morgan Park two weeks ago.

This time there was no Orlando Thomas to throw a key block. This time Geever was caught from behind at the 5-yard line.

He doesn't care. The Raiders scored a few plays later and went on to blow out the Steelmen 48-0 to stay undefeated and qualify for the playoffs with their fifth win.

"I'm just happy we scored," Geever said after throwing for two touchdowns and rushing for a third on a 13-yard run. "I got caught from behind. If we wouldn't have scored, I would have been more mad than I was, but I can't do anything about it now."

Except get ready for the hooping and hollaring during film study. My experience with these things is that his teammates will be nice about it, but getting ran down like that opens a guy up to some razzing.

After the Morgan Park game, Raiders coach John Ivlow said something along the lines of Geever is the worst athlete on the field, but made the biggest play. Ivlow said that Geever's mom, Laura Graf Geever, didn't take kindly to that.

"His ma jumped me behind the concession stand today and started yelling at me about saying that, and I told her, 'I'm sticking to it,'" Ivlow said. "He is. I'm sticking to it. Worst athlete on the field. But he's a great high school quarterback. He makes the right reads. He's not going to hurt you."

Unless you're a Bolingbrook opponent that is.

Welcome to our second Friday Night Live! of the season. The Bolingbrook Raiders (4-0) are hosting Joliet Township (1-3) tonight for homecoming. I will be out and about meeting people, getting their opnions and taking their photos. Most if not all of this photos will also appear in a photo gallery at TheBolingbrookSun.com in a day or so.

Bolingbrook football coach John Ivlow is making his first appearance as a guest blogger on The Brook Blog.

I have had the privilege of playing for many wonderful coaches in my career. I found out that many of them were wonderful people as well.

When I first thought about getting into coaching, I often wondered about what "style" I would adopt. Would we instill a hard work ethic among my players like my high school coach Wayne DeSutter, would we stress the physical aspect as preached by my college coach Earle Bruce, or would we take the George Siefert approach and establish a democracy among players and coaches?

The honest answer is that I have taken ideas from all of them, as well as from some people who had nothing to do with football. We have made a "mold" for our football player which has been derived from the ideals and values of myself, my staff and people that I have met along the way.

There are "no exceptions to the expectation" of behavior that we have for our football players and football program. If players or coaches do not "buy in", they are simply removed from the program. I do not know if this is the "right" way or the "wrong" way, but it is the "Raider" way and hopefully some portion of this article will give you some ideas.

If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, take a look at the blog of Joliet Twp. football coach Jason Aubry.

The mission statement of the site is: "a blog to keep you updated on what is happening in our football program at Joliet Township." This week's entries include a post about linebacker Corey Gualandi being named District 212 player of the week and a photo of the V Light, which I assume is a tradition akin to flying the W flag at Wrigley Field.

"let's keep working to keep the V lit up!"

Aubry wrote this on Tuesday a few days after his team, which went winless in 2007, broke a 17-game losing streak with a win over St. Ignatius. So it's a tradition in the sense that the Steelmen do it every time they win, but not in the sense they do it very often.

The Bolingbrook Trojans youth football club will hold its homecoming pep rally Thursday Sept. 25 at Bolingbrook High School in the field house from 6:30 till approx 8 pm.

The Trojans will play their homecoming games on Saturday at the Trojan field next to the Annerino Center in Bolingbrook. Games begin around 9 a.m.

The Bolingbrook Raiders will not host a winless team for homecoming. Joliet Twp. beat St. Ignatius 28-24 on Saturday night, giving the Steelmen their first win of the season and putting an end to a 17-game losing streak.

Joliet had not won since the fourth week of the 2006 season when the Steelmen beat Stagg 14-13. Coach Jason Aubry had this to say about the victory.

"A victory any time is a tremendous thing," Aubry said. "Where we are at right now, we need the taste of a victory in our mouth."

Bolingbrook (4-0), which remained No. 6 in the Sun-Times Super 25 football rankings, has trounced Joliet the past three seasons. The Raiders won 44-8 last year, 15-0 in 2007 and 48-6 in 2006.

Because the Bolingbrook Raiders eventually woke up on Friday night and thrashed Lincoln-Way North 47-7 (feel free to read the live blog for my play by play descriptions), there wasn't much need for strategic questions with coach John Ivlow after the final whistle.

Anyone who's watched the Raiders play this year knows that in short-yardage situations, especially close to the end zone, Barry Wolff subs in at quarterback for Brad Geever. Wolff has scored touchdowns the last two weeks out of goal line sets, and it made me curious enough to ask coach Ivlow what gives?

"He's tough," Ivlow said. "He's a tough runner. He's a very tough runner. ...If you ever see like what Brad does, Brad does a nice job, but to be honest with you, Barry's probably a better perimeter runner than brad. He's more like a fullback. Barry has the ability to play linebacker, guard, fullback, quarterback. I mean, you can put him just about anywhere. He's just a tough kid."

Ivlow said the division of labor between Geever and Wolff is established in practice with Wolff running a distinct package of plays with the first team. On Friday night, Wolff got extended playing time with the first team and was able to run all the plays.

One of those plays in the second half resulted in a fumble when he and running back (Jamel Martin? John Seigler?) botched an option play. The running back thought Wolff was giving the ball to him, but Wolff pulled it out. (Update: Craig Lichtenwalter reported that it was Martin.)

Lincoln-Way North's Brian Wolfe grabbed the ball and ran for his team's lone touchdown.

"He's a very capable quarterback," Ivlow said. "He doesn't get all the reps. More importantly, he doesn't get all the reps withe the ones. So those meshes are with the twos and threes and fours, where as Brad in there all the time with Jemel and John getting those meshes down. That's why it's a little bit smoother I think."

Hello out there Raiders fans. Welcome to the first Friday Night Live! of the season. I will be giving you live updates of the football game tonight between undefeated and sixth-ranked Bolingbrook and a Lincoln-Way North team that is searching for the first win in program history. Don't be afraid to drop me a comment, ask a question or type gibberish at me.

Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. I will get started at 7 p.m.

Jeff Alcox reports that the Bolingbrook Trojans went 4-4 in the second week of the season.

Jr. Pee Wee Division 1 beat Naperville, 24-20
Jr. Pee Wee Division 2 beat Algonquin, 7-0
Jr. Pee Wee Division 3 lost to Darien, 27-6

Pee Wee Division 1 lost to Naperville, 13-0
Pee Wee Division 2 lost to Gilberts, 24-16

Jr. Midgets Division 1 lost to Naperville, 18-12
Jr. Midgets Division 2 beat Naperville, 6-0

Midgets beat Garfield Park, 35-0

Unlimited beat Maine Township, 36-6

Bolingbrook Hijinx will be a regular feature that tells you the blessed readers what I know about the sporting/entertainment/cheap meal situation in Bolingbrook.

1. Bolingbrook Buccaneers vs. Thunder, Saturday at 7 p.m.

My good friend Bolingbrook Buccaneers Minor League Mailbox sent me an e-mail on Tuesday.

The Buccaneers have a big weekend coming up. They will be playing the 3 time Mid States Football League Champion on Saturday night at Joliet Memorial Stadium. TTheir will be Live Half Time entertainment and for all the kids under 10 walking through the gate will receive a free Dinner coupon for Old Country Buffet.

Don't even try to get a coupon in you're 11.

The Buccaneers game with the Steel was rained on on Sept. 13, which meant both teams got a tie. That improved Bolingbrook's record to 0-6-2.

Tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for students with I.D. and kids 11 and up (again the 10-year-olds rule) and senior citizens are $4. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Tailgating is encouraged permitted.

The undefeated Bolingbrook Raiders (3-0) moved up three spots to No. 6 in this week's Sun-Times Super 25 football rankings.

The top five are Maine South, St. Rita, Naperville North, Wheaton Warrenville South and Lincoln-Way East.

While you must play one game at a time, blah, blah, blah, I don't play, so I can tell you that the only ranked teams remaining on the Bolingbrook schedule are Oct. 3 at No. 18 Lincoln-Way Central and Oct. 10 at No. 5 Lincoln-Way East. Not that any of that matters once the playoffs start.

So if you were there on Friday night and witnessed the Bolingbrook Raiders pull off their amazing 29-21 win over Morgan Park, then your clothes are probably in a soaking wet ball on the bathroom floor.

I'm not saying it rained a lot last night, but anyone not wearing either a wet suit or a lot of sponges was drastically underdressed.

The conditions that game were played in took it beyond classic, not that the play alone wasn't enough. Such a great game. So many great plays.

Everyone should take a second to thank the people that decided to purchase that Field Turf surface. Without the fake grass, that game would have been a mess.

But let's move on.

The Bolingbrook Raiders are ranked No. 9 in this week's Chicago Sun-Times Super 25 football rankings, up from No. 10 last week.

9. Bolingbrook (2-0) 10

Raiders defense will face its biggest physical test.

hosts No. 19 Morgan Park on Friday

The Mustangs opened the year with a 24-20 loss to Brother Rice, but beat Richards 48-21 on Friday night. Richards was 11-1 last season and a quarterfinalist in Class 6A.

BLUE ISLAND -- Eisenhower head coach Travis Moore got a kick out of seeing Bolingbrook assistant coach Kyle Jakubek on the opposing sideline on Friday night.

Moore said seeing his fellow Northern Illinois alumnus told him all he needed to know about how the Bolingbrook Raiders would play.

"I smiled because I knew his players would be a refelection of him and he knew my players would be a reflection of me," Moore said.