JCA Shut Out
- Thread starter Secondo1
- Start date
Hate to see Joliet Catholic lose but maybe that will shut some of your asses up who constantly cry about Private Schools. If The Toppers would have won I can see it now Oh how many players do they have from Oswego 😒😒😒
per IHSA, they lost 10-0 to Naz on 9/30/16
Edit:
JCA lost 34-0 to Notre Dame of Niles 9/15/17 and 42-0 to IC the following year on 8/31/18
They came back to win state in 2018.
JCA brought back 15 players. But none of them, according to Mike O'Brien, have star power. That's how you get shut out in your second game..
Im more surprised that none of the football experts knew what type of talent Oswego had this season.
Lots of teams don't have players with star power and don't get shutout. I think it has a little something to do with Oswego being pretty good.
Before the game, I knew almost nothing about Oswego except they usually have a decent team or better.
3-4 minutes into the 1st Quarter, I knew Oswego was good and talented, and it was going to be a brutal day for the Hilltoppers.
They've been that way for decades. Always looked forward to the Morris/Oswego game every year. You could always count on it being a good old fashioned slobber knocker.
By featuring a one back, run first-at-all-costs offense, it’s a challenge to attract athletic kids who could develop into star power
Well, at least it used to attract more talented running backs, AKA feature backs. this years squad has a stable full of decent RB's but no real feature backs. Number 28 stands out as a very good RB but not quite a feature back. He needs more threats around him to take pressure off of him. Like a passing game. JAWS try to develop your passing game. It might be scary to put the ball in the air a lot more, but trust me, it can't get worse.
Even if they shifted the focus to an increased passing game, they’d attract more athletic kids. Right now, they’re losing these kids to other schools.
Agreed.
JCA was opening up the Offense and passing quite a bit starting during covids and pre-covids and stayed that way until last years when Jaws started closing down the offense and was becoming run happy again, which cost him the championship game in 2023 when his feature back became injured just before the half. Then it was too late to try to develop a passing game out of necessity against a team the quality of Naz. JCA's offense was non-existent after he lost his feature back.
JCA needs to rediscover the forward pass and keep it in the game plan.
The Head Coach is starting his 7th year.
One of his previous six years was the COVID year.
In five years of normal structure he has led his squad to three State Championship games and won two.
When he took the job the previous squad went 1-8.
He and his staff have proven that they know how to develop football players and win.
I realize your reply was not directed at me necessarily, but it could have been because I'm being hard on Jaws right now.
Although it may not sound like it right now, I'm a big Coach Jaws fan, but I have to admit that over their last 16 games I have been saying "Jaws WTF are you doing?" a lot, especially the last 3 games.
It's almost like, his success is making him scared of doing something wrong and has greatly and adversely effected his game planning and play calling. Either that , or he has absolutely no faith in his teams ability to complete a forward pass.
Kevin, you played in the program.
Get a goddam grip on yourself and trust that the coaches know what is best.
Make Tony Janc proud.
You guys are the same side, I guess a shutout is expected to bring out anger. JCA will be fine. I mean
Hopefully.
Hopefully.
Get a grip? That made me laugh.
It's not the same game as it was in the 70's and 80's. It's rarely enough now to be a one dimensional running team even with almost perfect execution, but still possible when you have all the right tools.
Most of the time in todays game you have to have at least a good enough passing game to keep defenses honest. In 5A and above. Smaller schools can still get away with running all the time, provided they have near perfect execution.
Just my opinion.
We are not sore losers. AKA blame Refs, etc.
But we are not particularly good at losing either.
I mean, an offense that features up to 3 backs and highlights their abilities is bound to attract running back talent. Kids like Jordan Anderson and both Iannantones and Grigsby and Keenan Hailey like to get the ball 20 plus times a game. Might this come at the expense of some 6'2" 170 pound WR speedsters? Sure. But it's hard to create an offense that is going to be attractive to both running backs and QBs/WRs.
I think it is fair to say that when they are able to attract a QB who can sling it with a few capable receivers, they sling it and it can look good (2021 was a nice balance of power running and Voss spreading it around). But that's with a mobile and sound decision making QB. This year's QB is still young and last year's QB had a skill set very different from Voss.
Sure, they can try to alter the offense to attract more QB talent. But to do so last year would have been a criminal misuse of the talent on the roster. Quite simply, if that team was passing 15 times a game on average, it would not have gone well.
This year it looks similar with a young QB and WR/TE being the only real offensive position where they don't have experienced returners. We will see what happens.
They will have to open it up some out of necessity as the schedule sees teams that are as good and better than Oswego's front. It remains to be seen if that will go well, but they will have to try.
But it's real easy to say "just open it up to attract more incoming QB/WR talent. These things are all cyclical and I am glad to see this staff has spent the last 7 years playing to the strengths of what they have in the building and not simply running a system because it's their system or running a system incongruent with their current talent just to attract some possible future talent.
I think most of the JC faithful here knew what we were getting when Oswego was scheduled. They are what I thought they would be. Perhaps a little better. JC responded not as well as I would have liked. But the win was not a surprise to most. When I saw the Oswego game on the schedule, I thought it was overscheduling. If we didn't already have Marist, Naz, MC, PC, Fenwick, etc. then I would love Oswego to bolster the schedule.
As it was, I said the Oswego game would be a good gauge and fans of other programs seemed to call that classic JC sandbagging.
So it seems like any perception of not knowing was not coming from the JC camp.
That said, I will say that I knew the talent they had returning. However, their "merely" above average results last year makes me understand why some were still in the "prove it" mode before they believed in what Oswego was cooking. I think they should run the table in their league. Then we will see what November brings.
Yes, since the Covid year, Oswego hasn’t been typical Oswego, but most of those people in the know should have been aware that many of this year’s Sr class have been playing Varsity since their sophomore year.
It's really not hyperbole to say they must beat Fenwick to have any reasonably simple avenue to 5 wins. With Marist, Naz, and MC upcoming, that is 3 games as 7 plus point dogs with a loss already in hand. If you beat Fenwick, there is still a path to 5 as long as you can beat ND and PC (who both look pretty good overall so far). Lose to Fenwick and the tough sledding just gets tougher.
Weren’t you the same guy who accused the JCA faithful of sandbagging and suggested they would easily go 2-0?
If one looks at where recent Hilltopper Receivers land in college, they appear to be doing just fine attracting talent.
- Jake Fieldman, DI FCS Eastern Illinois (’21 team, a team with more passing yards than the ’21 Maine South team)
- Justin Bonsu, DI, United States Naval Academy (’22 team)
- Nate Ahoyt DII, University of Indianapolis (’22 team)
- Adrian Washington, DII Quincy University (’23 team)
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Agreed. I came into the year thinking the Hilltoppers had two guaranteed losses on their schedule (MC and Naz). Watched the end of the Marist/Rice game. I would add Marist to the list of losses. Too big and too fast for this JCA team. Was really impressed with Ritter, the QB transfer from LWE. I still don't understand how Marist is in the Orange division. and IC is in the Green. For whatever reason, IC has gotten screwed in their Division placement, since they entered the CCL, IMO.
If JCA can get to 4 wins, I like their chances of making the playoffs. At this point, it looks like both Marist and Oswego have good chances of going undefeated, which would pump up the Hilltoppers' playoff points. If I had to predict right now, I think Fenwick wins on Friday, and JCA goes into Week 9 with 3 wins needing to beat Provi in New Lenox to get to 4. A lot is riding on this Fenwick game. The Friars have looked good so far.
This does nothing to support Private schools and the playoffs. A regular season game is next to meaningless. The private debate and a strong argument, is Private schools in public playoffs. That debate will not end until pubs and priv's are in their own playoffs or priv's greatly bumped up in classification... saying 7A or 8A. Something will give one day.
IC didn't get screwed, they were placed in their division the first year based on them complaining where to be. There is a formula that places all the teams based on enrollment, football numbers in the program and success within the conference.
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