By Keith Brake
Geneseo Current
Teams Must Learn to Handle Change
Last season, Geneseo visited Grayslake Central for the first time and the Rams sent the Maple Leafs on a long ride home after taking a 24-14 victory.
What's more, Grayslake Central's sophomores handed the Leaf sophs their only defeat of the season.
What can we learn from all that?
Well, for sure that this opponent has earned its respect, which Maple Leaf teams accord anyway. But, this opponent has changed coaches, and schemes. So, watching last year's tape won't be of great value.
The “new” coach is new as a head coach to Grayslake Central football, but has been on Chicagoland sidelines for a while.
He is Brent Pearlman, who directed three state champion teams while coaching at Class 7A Prospect High School.
Last week, the Rams played Class 7A Bolingbrook, a school with 2,000 more students than Grayslake Central's 1,330. The Rams took one on the chin, 41-6. “Bolingbrook is a real good team,” Geneseo Coach Larry Johnsen Jr., said. “They get you out in space with some real good athletes and last week they won some of those one-on-one matchups.”
Johnsen said the Rams played a three-down defense last year, “but didn't show a nose guard last week.”
On offense, “they showed multiple looks, but they're primarily a 'gun team that likes to spread you out.”
Geneseo had little difficulty handling Chicago Comer last Friday, 56-0.
Comer also had a new coach. “The issue there was how would our players adjust to the different things Comer was doing, without a lot of preparation time?'” Johnsen said, noting the Leafs did a good job.
That took care of two of three Johnsen objectives for a first game. The first was to win, the second was to handle new stuff as it happened. The coach said those went well.
“The third thing was how 'clean' were we?” he said. “We limited our penalties and we generally were pretty clean, got the plays in on time, and so forth.”
“We started all seniors last week,” Johnsen said. “That's a big difference right there. We're experienced, playing with 17-18-year -old guys, instead of 15-16-year olds, like we had been.”
Illinois teams no longer run two-a-day practices before the season starts. That has forced teams to adapt, “and spend more time together in the summer,” Johnsen said.
Now, teams can work with other teams in the summer. Johnsen said the Leafs did that with Dunlap, a strong program in the Peoria area. “I think both schools felt that went well,” Geneseo's coach said.
The schools had 16 official practices before last week's games. By the time they have another 16, they'll be in Week 5. “We want to be physical and to do that we need to have physical practices,” Johnsen said. “We're limited regarding how much time we can devote to teaching the fundamental skills we need.”
Did the Leafs look big to you last week? Well, they were in their white road uniforms. Light colors make you look bigger. But there are at least a dozen down linemen on the varsity roster who are 6-2 or taller, and check in between 220 and 240 pounds.
That's decent size as Geneseo teams go. “It's comparable to the teams we're going to be playing against,” Johnsen said.
Take some time to look at the arms of some of the Leaf players. They show evidence of productive time in strength and conditioning training! There were few instances of cramping until late, “and it (the humidity) was just thick out on the field,” Johnsen said.
A 12-6 WIN was achieved by Geneseo's frosh-soph team over the Alleman junior varsity on Saturday morning in Rock Island, so congratulations to the Leafs for that one.