I didn't plan on attending...

...the 7A and 8A football finals in Champaign yesterday -- really. Although I do admit the thought kept popping into my head all week, only to be met by the same response:

Drive three hours down to Champaign, watch TWO football games in the freezing cold (and dark) for about six hours or so, and then drive three hours back the same night? Are you crazy?

And then my wife asked me Saturday morning, "So when are you leaving for the games?"

"I'm not."

"What? You call yourself a football fan?"

She shamed me into it. At least that's what I'm telling people.

"Oh, sure," a guy said to me this morning. "Wives are always shaming their husbands into attending sporting events." (I detected a slight note of sarcasm in his voice.)

So I went. And I'm glad I did.

I left the house around noon and arrived at Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Illinois at around 2:30. See? It only took two and a half hours, not three. Things were looking up already.

Memorial Stadium was built in 1923 in memory of the University of Illinois students who died in World War I. (Legend has it that heavy rain during construction resulted in a bulldozer sinking into the field. It was decided that the expense of removing the bulldozer would have been greater than leaving it buried. Apparently, it's still there.)

The stadium was officially dedicated on Homecoming, October 18, 1924, when the Illini defeated Michigan, 39-14. Red Grange, a Wheaton High School alum, accounted for six touchdowns in what remains the single greatest performance in Memorial Stadium history:

In the first 12 minutes of that game, Grange ran for a total of 265 yards and scored four times. He had his hands on the ball only six times and left the field before the end of the first quarter. In the third quarter, Grange returned and ran 13 yards for his fifth touchdown, and in the final period he passed to Marion Leonard for his sixth score of the day. In 42 minutes of playing time, Grange gained a total of 402 yards, carried the ball 21 times and also completed six passes for 64 yards. Legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg called it "the most spectacular single-handed performance ever delivered in a major game."

There's even a statue of Grange outside the stadium and lots of reliefs and inscriptions written with V's instead of U's, as if they were carved by ancient Romans instead of twentieth century Midwesterners.

(It's a little depressing, though, to think that the best performance by an Illinois athlete was on the day they opened the place. Has it been downhill ever since?)

___

The 7A and 8A games turned out to be remarkably similar. They each featured a team which relied almost solely on the run (Lake Zurich and Mount Carmel) against teams which were comfortable passing as well as running (Wheaton Warrenville South and Maine South). And the results were similar: WWS defeated Lake Zurich, 28-17, and Maine South nearly shut out Mount Carmel, 28-7.

(My takeaway from the evening was that teams need multi-dimensional offenses to win in high school football today. If they rely too much on the run and are stopped, like Lake Zurich and Mount Carmel, they can find themselves in trouble. It's hard for a running team to come from behind, especially without eating up too much of the clock. And if forced to pass, like Lake Zurich and Mount Carmel were, they can be ineffective. But by having an offense that passes routinely, like WWS, teams can strike quickly and come from behind, which the Tigers did twice.

Also, teams like WWS and Maine South have so many weapons to deploy. Both have good running backs, quarterbacks that can run as well as pass, and several receivers that are hard to cover. They have to be a defensive coordinator's nightmare.)

In the 7A contest, Lake Zurich running back Jacob Brinlee, above, lived up to his hype, setting a 7A title game record of 226 yards on 33 carries. As WWS coach Ron Muhitch said after the game, "Credit to Brinlee. He kept them in the game single-handedly."

But that was the problem. Lake Zurich turned out to be a one-trick pony. Bears quarterback Zach Till only completed 6 of 9 passes for 21 yards and one interception. The Tigers, meanwhile, scored twice on runs by running back Matt Rogers and twice on passes from quarterback Reilly O'Toole to Titus Davis. O'Toole, above, finished the night 14 of 23 for 182 yards passing with 48 yards rushing on 13 carries.

So the Tigers won the 7A title for the second year in a row. They were undefeated (14-0), played a tough schedule and featured the Sun-Times Player of the Year at quarterback. (It will be interesting to watch O'Toole at Illinois.) Although I think Maine South would give them a much tougher game at this point in the season, WWS beat them on the field and deserve to be ranked No. 1 in the state.

In the evening's finale, Maine South won its third consecutive championship, matching East St. Louis's run from 1983 to '85. While the Caravan definitely had an off-night, the Hawks were peaking at just the right time. Quarterback Matt Alviti, above, passed for 224 yards and a touchdown, ran for another, and running back Paul Preston rushed for 145 yards and two touchdowns.

Mount Carmel's offense, in contrast, was flat. Running backs Michael Banks and Draco Smith were held to 43 and 33 yards, respectively. Quarterback Chris Sujka led the Caravan in rushing with 69 yards and was forced to pass in the second half with mixed results. Sujka completed 9 of 18 passes for 119 yards, including a beautiful 71-yard touchdown to Mayan Cook for the Caravan's lone score at 1:08 in the fourth quarter. But Sujka also threw two interceptions, one of which killed a drive late in the game.

I'd rank Maine South No. 2 in the state, with Lake Zurich and Mount Carmel tied for third.

In hindsight, Maine South coach Dave Inserra, above, probably did the right thing by alternating quarterbacks in the beginning of the season. While he may have cost the Hawks two games (Schaumburg and WWS), Inserra found his best offense; and it only got better as the season wore on. Also, Maine South now has the nucleus of a great offense for next year. (Alviti is only a sophomore and Preston a junior.)

It's a shame that Maine South and WWS play each other so early in the season. It's made for lopsided victories the last two years. If they were to play each other now, on a neutral field, the result might be different.

Come on, IHSA, combine 7A and 8A!