Coach Mike Noll was not smiling...

...when I saw him on Friday night and his Titans were getting shellacked by Stevenson, 42-20.

And it made me wonder, has Noll "jumped the shark?" In other words, are his best years at the helm of Glenbrook South behind him? In the first two games of the season, his team has allowed a total of 84 points.

After the Glenview squad got whipped, 42-14, in the opener at Minooka, Noll was uncharacteristically whiny as he told the Sun-Times:

"They were better than us. There is not a lot you can do. We're really young. We're not physically strong. I've never put a team quite this small on the field. It's a little disturbing. We're an 8A school and we dressed 35 kids tonight."

I think that last part --35 kids -- gets at the heart of Noll's problem.

When he arrived in 2004, Coach Noll had a blank check from the GBS community to rebuild the once-storied program. He had come from McHenry High School, where he'd built the Warriors into a powerhouse, winning 142 games and losing only 28. McHenry also won 14 Fox Valley Conference titles and appeared in the playoffs 16 times, reaching the quarterfinals in 1999 and 2003.

What do you need, coach? A new weight room? Done. Improved practice facilities? Done. A more active Booster Club? Done. Whatever you need, coach -- Glenbrook South is totally committed.

And Noll made good on his part of the bargain, winning 46 games and losing only 18. In addition, the Titans have qualified for the playoffs in each of the last five seasons.

But there's only one thing that Glenbrook South couldn't deliver for Noll and one that he can't control, and it's a big one -- the lack of a "football" culture in Glenview.

Even though Glenview has a good youth football program and even though its residents are just as interested in sports as anywhere, the northern suburbs just don't foster the same football culture that you would find in places like Maine South or Loyola (which draws over half of its students from the city). At the end of the day, the Glenbrook South community just doesn't care. If the Titans win, well, that's just great. But if they lose, well, so what? The GBS community -- students, parents, teachers -- just gets on with their lives. (It's kind of like the difference between Notre Dame and Northwestern.)

One of the knocks against Noll has been that he finds 22 players to start the season and sticks with them no matter what. He also demands a total year-round commitment from his athletes, which, in his defense, is necessary in this day and age to succeed at that level. But the problem is, how do you get that commitment from more than 22 kids? If I have no chance of ever getting into a game, why would I want to make that commitment? In fact, why would I want to play at all, especially when there are so many other things to do at GBS and given that no one in town really cares that much about football anyway?

As I watched Noll on Friday night I couldn't help wondering if he was getting a little frustrated with the culture at GBS. I wonder if he feels like he's taken this team about as far it can go. It wouldn't surprise me, in fact, if he was losing patience with GBS and moved on before too long to a town and a school that had a culture more to his liking.