ESL wiped them out in the playoffs later that year
Most impressive win in IHSA history?
- Thread starter Colin2299
- Start date
Come on, now. No one wants to hear Cinderella was giving it up all over the kingdom ... you ruined the narrative!
In round 1 ESL barely squeaked by Belleville East 7-0
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Not sure why the Dergo game keeps being brought up. AWESOME game but not in the ballpark as most impressive win.
Side note, crazy how Morris used to be an elite 6a program and now are 4a.
It was called "Football Enrollment"....Morris was in the SPC with the Plainfields,Minooka and Oswego....all 2 to 3 times their size...Morris was about 900 kids at that time
Very familiar with football enrollment. I always find it interesting where programs were 20 years ago to where they are now.
Ex:
Hampshire, Burlington Central, used to be 2A.
Walther used to be a small school powerhouse.
Nazareth used to be in the private school league.
Morris seems like an outliner that I can’t wrap my brain around.
- Their enrollment is down 200 kids over the past 20 years…1,053 to roughly 850.
- Their population is up almost 3k
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The Wilmington game came about when both teams needed a game...one time deal,the have played Coal City maybe 5 or 6 times and with both falling in 4A a bit its not unusual.
In the past Morris has played Naperville Central,St Rita,Richards,Peoria,Minooka,JCA,Mahomet-Seymour,Lemont,Driscoll,Oswego in non conference games. Maybe with the new format there will be more bigger marquee games.
As far as enrollment,I brought it up before as being a resident here for 40 + years that it's weird how Morris enrollment has been pretty consistent between 850-960 with the exception around 2002-2004 where there were about 1,000 kids. It's one of those oddities...I know on my street the houses were built in 1994-1996....all of us had school aged kids. 25 plus years later about 95% still live here and we are all empty nesters.
This kind of thing is happening in a lot of places. Wilmington population is up about 2k from when I graduated, but the enrollment is down almost 200 kids. Braidwood has similar numbers regarding enrollment vs city population.
People having less kids or no kids? Back in the days families of 3 or 4 kids were commonplace.
I guess so.
I'm looking at some numbers now. Wilmo population is currently up about 1000 from when I graduated, not 2000, which it almost was at its peak. According to the data I'm looking at, population peaked in 2009 at 6100 and is currently at about 5500. When I graduated, I think the signs said 4484 or something like that.
When I graduated, the enrollment was well over 500. Now it is 383.
When I played, Joliet Catholic was 5A out of 6 classes. Had 850 boys my freshman year. How times have changed.
That's a lot of kids walking uphill both ways in the snow.
Yeah you got me to laugh too, BUT there's a lot of truth in your statement, they do NOT call us the Hillmen and Hilltoppers for nothing. There are very steep hills to the east and west of the old Joliet Catholic, and a little hilly to the north.
So your statement was actually very correct. Why do you think our players had such good leg strength, back before modern workouts.
Our Fullback Rick Thayer (75-76) had to get his football pants from an NFL distributor because nobody made pants for 30" thighs.
Pearlman might be the 1 guy I'll accept when people claim it was the coaching and not the talent although even he would still need a baseline of capability.
East Side comeback win against St. Rita in the 7A Quarter final, Black Cat (Terry Hawthorne) put the whole team on his back. He carried Sunk to his first State Championship, and revived the tradition at East Side.
With Geneva’s declining enrollment let’s hope the two schools renew the rivalry, if only for a year or two.
There was a librarian at Althoff who wore awful ankle boots every day and gained the unfortunate nickname of Hill Climber based on this character from The Price is Right.
Plus the random team from Michigan the last two years. From what I was told they are the equivalent to a 7A school in Illinois in terms of size.
Those years they hovered around 1,000 were outliers and just a couple of really big classes that went through. Historically Morris has always ad between 800-900 kids.
I mean, first time beating JCA, Dergo being named national player of the week by USA Today. Going for 300+ yards on the ground, 3 TDs, 2 INTs, and 4 XPs. He was responsible for 22 of Morris' 28 points, oh and he kicked off and punter. He literally did not come off the field.
That's what everyone remembers, but on the other side, if it wasn't for Dergo this game would have went down as the Joe Benson game. Don't have his exact numbers handy, but he had a ridiculous game as well.
I think all of the components of this game put it over a random week 2 game.
To your side note, I wouldn't say Morris was ever an elite 6A program considering 2005-06 were the only two years they were ever 6A and the only reason for that was football enrollment.
Fenwick over ESL was already mentioned but it still blows my mind to go back and look at the stats from the game.
ESL ran 76 plays to Fenwick’s 35
Fenwick was only +1 in turnover differential.
ESL ran 76 plays to Fenwick’s 35
Fenwick was only +1 in turnover differential.
Benson had a ridiculous senior season. However he did not light up the box score in the morris game. I believe he was dinged up and as such the offense uncharacteristically was dependent on the arms and legs of qb bill mckeon.
I recall benson getting substantially fewer touches than usual and very few explosive plays, which were typically abundant when he ran the ball.
Cmon Homer…
It was two undefeated teams from the same class and your team was loaded with Division 1 talent.
Great game. Best individual performance. But not even close to as impressive as Rochester
It was a week 2 game. Yes, it was awesome to see Rochester do what they did, but still a long way to go in the season. What if Batavia finishes 6-3 and loses in the 2nd round of the playoffs? Is it still that impressive? Will we still be talking about this game 21 years later?
I would be shocked if he had over 60-70 yards rushing. Probably single digit or no more than 12 rushing attempts. He was probably targeted in the passing game more than usual as I recall McKeon attempting at least double if not triple the usual passing attemps for a JCA game in that era.
It became clear by late quarter one that something was up and the "Just handoff to Benson" plan was not in play for this game. The WJOL broadcasters seemed to have some info on the injury status and kept talking about a shoulder issue from the previous week being the reason the offense wasn't even attempting to run their usual system.
*JCA (0) @ Provi (41)
*2002 IHSA 5A Qtr Finals
*JCA enters playoffs at 7-2, Provi enters playoffs at 9-0.
*Played earlier in the season @ Memorial Stadium. Quite possibly one of the largest crowds there, ever.ESPN national broadcast. Provi ended up winning 10 to 2.
*Rematched was dubbed game of the century, and considered the state championship. Two top teams in state.
*Everyone expected a close hard fought game, but Provi came out firing and was most impressive win I can recall.
*Total domination against a JCA team that could easily have went on and won state.
*Best D I’ve ever seen too. Provi had 6 shutouts on year. Allowed 52 pts all season for an average of ~3 opponent pts per game. Insane!
*2002 IHSA 5A Qtr Finals
*JCA enters playoffs at 7-2, Provi enters playoffs at 9-0.
*Played earlier in the season @ Memorial Stadium. Quite possibly one of the largest crowds there, ever.ESPN national broadcast. Provi ended up winning 10 to 2.
*Rematched was dubbed game of the century, and considered the state championship. Two top teams in state.
*Everyone expected a close hard fought game, but Provi came out firing and was most impressive win I can recall.
*Total domination against a JCA team that could easily have went on and won state.
*Best D I’ve ever seen too. Provi had 6 shutouts on year. Allowed 52 pts all season for an average of ~3 opponent pts per game. Insane!
My Psychiatrist told me the game ended at half and St. Rita won 28-7 at the Clyde. There was no second half. There was no Black Cat. Just a misty rain of tears and regrets. Not that I haven't moved on or anything.
That was a very impressive Provi win. JCA was a weird, kind of disfunctional team that year. Never lived up to expectations. Squeaked by RB in the second round 10-7 and then pounded by PC in the quarters. JCA won the title the three years prior to that team and the two years after and compiled a record of 55-2 during that span. Quite a stretch for the Hillmen.
He had a long 60+ yard receiving TD on a short pass but it seems he did not light it up rushing the ball.
2002 was a weird season. Schedule was really soft too outside of PC and Rockhurst. Outside of those games, there was only really an average Loyola squad as a meaningful measure. The rest of the schedule was just awful. So all we knew entering the playoffs was a narrow 7-0 win over LA, a close 10-2 loss to PC with no real offense on either side, and a loss to powerhouse Rockhurst (MO) that was never particularly close.
So that regular season slate with no real accomplishments to boast about followed by a close call to a bad R-B team in round 2 left us with little to show any progress. And 5A was so bad that year that had JCA defeated PC in the quarters, that down JCA team likely would have won the title as well.
And as good as that PC team was, they also had a massively lackluster resume with just a brutally weak schedule, atypical of a normal PC or JC schedule. 60 point shutouts are fun and all, but JC and PC loaded up on creampuffs like Mac, Holy Cross, Leo, Hales, and St. Viator. Outside of a week 1 matchup against an ok St. Rita team and the JCA game, their regular season was full of creampuffs. And then their 5A run included Fenger-Rich Central-down JCA-Rochelle-Pontiac.
Maybe the least exciting championship season in their history. In my mind, it had always been because of how good that PC team was. Looking back at the schedule and actual victories, yikes.....How the heck was their CMC division so bad that year?
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Yes, I would be interested to hear how many rushes he got. The other back Hrvatin and QB McKeon carried the ball a lot more than usual that game and they also put it in the air a lot that game.
It's been two decades, but I would guess he only carried the ball 7-10 times at most (and a few of them looked painful). So they tried to get Benson in space a bit and were successful a couple times.
But all in all, with as talented as that Morris team was, the fact that the game was as close as it was is fairly surprising. The fun narrative is David vs Goliath but the more truthful narrative is two relatively similarly talented teams with Morris probably having slightly more overall talent that year and JCA's most dynamic offensive weapon probably playing at 30 percent of his capacity. I know the history and I know JC handled Morris with no issues whatsoever the previous year. But in all reality, Morris should have won the "Dergo" game even if Dergo had just played a pedestrian regular game and not put out all the gaudy statlines.
I have no skin in the game, but I disagree.
Providence was coming off an undefeated season and a dominant 41-0 state championship win over Richards the year before. They returned a good number of starters, plus plenty of kids who had already seen significant playing time.
Was their schedule the strongest? No. But neither were the schedules of some of the other state champs that year, including Lockport and Mount Carmel. Providence played who was in front of them and dominated like they were supposed to. If they were struggling or barely getting by weaker teams, I’d understand that argument more. But they weren’t. Their points for/against were ridiculous, and they were ranked No. 9 in the country.
But really, my argument is about that one JCA playoff game and what it looked like going into it.
Providence and JCA had already played earlier that season in a huge game on ESPN, and Providence only won by single digits. Then both teams continued through the season looking like legitimate state-title teams. So when they met again in the playoffs, I think most people expected another close, hard-fought game. It basically felt like the state championship.
Instead, Providence absolutely steamrolled them.
Looking back 20+ years later, we can pick apart schedules and debate how good each team really was. But based on the first matchup, how both teams were playing that season, and the expectations going into the rematch, that kind of domination was shocking.
That’s why, when the question is “most impressive win in IHSA history,” that game immediately comes to mind for me.
Looking forward to a great game this Friday!
I don’t think we disagree. That PC team was excellent . The schedules of both teams were bad but there’s not much that can be done about that. Just a bad breakdown of teams into divisions that year and 5a was down too.
pc played two regular season games against teams with winnnmg records. 9-5 Rita and a down jca squad. The rest of the schedule was historically bad and then 5a was basically a dud that year too. Not pcs fault and you can’t hold it against them except for in the hypothetical goat debates in which case the lack of resume is obviously a huge factor
the only disagreement I would have is saying that after the week 4 regular season game that both teams went back to playing like title contenders. JCA got manhandled by Rockhurst the following week and then went on to beat Leo and other bottom feeders for a few weeks. The 10-7 last minute win over a very down R-B in week 11 should have been the telltale sign that all was not right with the Hill that year.
would have loved to have seen a rockhurst vs providence game that season. Mid season rockhurst probably pounds mid season providence but postseason providence may have been different as they did seem to get better even with limited data points against competitive teams
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