Three months ago, Paul Murphy was very candid, as always, when asked how good he thought Waubonsie Valley could be in 2015.
“Right now, I plan on taking (Bears’ head coach) John Fox’s approach to it: we’re going to understate it, try to over perform,” Murphy said in August. “I have no idea what our record is or (how) anything is going to be this year. Because it’s all dependent on how our players develop. How our players adjust to things during the games we ask them to do?”
Over 13 straight weeks starting on the last Friday of August, the young Warriors gave Murphy numerous answers to those questions on the way to a surprise run to a Class 8A state semifinal.
For the first time since Murphy’s first year at Waubonsie Valley – 2005 – the program lost five games.
But for a five-loss team, they accomplished a hell of a lot in reaching the program’s second state semifinal – following in the footsteps of the 1992 team that went 12-1 before losing to Naperville North.
And it all started with a senior class who refused to give in after two losses to end the regular season left it at 5-4 and facing a long trip to Edwardsville as the 30th seed in Class 8A.
“The biggest thing is that they proved after going regular season 5-4 is their heart,” Murphy said. “They just wouldn’t give up. They wouldn’t say ‘they couldn’t come back.’ There was a lot of games that at the end of the year where we were trailing and we come back and found a way to get it done.
“So I thought our seniors did a fantastic job of (leading). Their motto all year was ‘leave a legacy.’ They wanted to leave a legacy. At 5-4, it didn’t look they were going to leave much of a legacy and somehow, someway they got everybody to buy in in terms of what we were trying to accomplish.”
At the two most demanding positions on the football field – running back and middle linebacker – Max Ihry led the way.
Ihry, headed to Northern Illinois next fall to wrestle, ran for 1,493 yards and 14 touchdowns – eclipsing the 100-yard mark nine times
“He pretty much led by example because he had that ‘never say die’ attitude,” Murphy said of his 6-foot, 210-pound workhorse, who had 135 tackles from his linebacker spot.
The same could be said for the job Jack Connolly did at quarterback during his one year at the helm of Murphy’s triple option offense.
With the Warriors trying to utilize Ihry’s power while aiming to play ball control, Connolly threw for 1,060 yards and eight touchdowns while running for 552 yards and seven touchdowns.
“Absolutely he did (get better),” Murphy said of Connolly. “Running option football isn’t easy. It takes a ton of reps. It takes a lot of trust, not only on my part as a coach but a trust in him to make the right decisions. We put a lot on his shoulders in terms of the option game because if you analyze our team from past years – we didn’t have the speed on offense that we’ve had in the past years.”
Historically, Murphy has tended to go year-by-year at quarterback, with a junior understudy taking over for the departed senior.
Come 2016, that won’t be the case.
Sophomore Tanner Westwood, whose halfback passes against Naperville Central in September and against Edwardsville in the first round of the Class 8A playoffs proved pivotal in victories, will get his shot.
“He was our backup all year with all the JV games, so my guess it should be him unless something happens,” Murphy said of Westwood.
Tight ends Charles Robinson and Richie Puls will be back to help Westwood offensively while three offensive linemen – Dan Dominiak, Corey McKnight, Alex Stone – return.
Murphy believes his team will bring back 14 players – seven on both sides of the ball – that saw extensive time this season.
The return of safety Connor Yukna, linebacker Josh Dominiak and the versatile Quaid Gill next fall should give Warriors’ defensive coordinator Ron Griffin a nice trio to build around.
Yukna had 102 tackles and tied for the team lead in interceptions with Trevon Moore with five.
Josh Dominiak recorded 127 tackles, eight TFLs and five sacks while Gill had 93 tackles, two sacks and four PBUs.
It may be strange to say the arrow’s pointing up following a five-loss season.
But that’s a credit to the job the seniors did with their leadership – led by Ihry and Connolly.
“Next year’s team will be totally different from this year’s team because the seniors will be gone,” Murphy said. “It’s now time – during the offseason – for the junior group who now become seniors to become the leaders and the sophomores underneath them to gain a year and their classmates that they didn’t get to play with last year because they were on the sophomore team – those guys have got to come up and do the job, as well.
“I think the foundation has been laid for next year but same thing – what kind of team are we going to have next year? All depends if they continue to work hard and they’ll continue to believe. It’s just what kind of leadership will we get now in the offseason and going into next football season.”
