As Naperville North prepares to try and stay on the postseason track in light of a three-game losing streak, Friday night’s meeting at North Central College with crosstown rival Naperville Central might be exactly what it needs to get going.
While Naperville North needs a win badly and the defending Class 8A state champions can become playoff eligible with a fifth straight victory, getting an idea of how to go about dealing with the two crosstown rivals can be asked of the two common opponents up to this point—Neuqua Valley and Glenbard North—could be noteworthy.
The combined record against those two highly regarded programs for the Redhawks and Huskies: 3-1, a four-game tote that includes a pair of victories over Neuqua Valley.
Neuqua Valley fell victim to both Naperville North and Naperville Central in successive weeks to start the season by scores of 14-13 and 19-0, respectively, while Glenbard North split with the two programs in the last two weeks.
“I mean, it’s been a classic forever—Naperville North, Naperville Central. They’re both good football teams,” Neuqua Valley coach Bill Ellinghaus said. “Naperville Central, obviously, has done a phenomenal job defensively, more than anything, this year. Their defense is really, really strong and Naperville North is going to have to establish a run game.
“Naperville Central has been stingy in the run game department. So I think it’s going to be a great football game. You got two teams that are very well coached and two teams that know each other very well. I think you can pretty much throw the records out the window when those two teams play each other.”
Neuqua Valley decided to go for two instead of playing for overtime against Naperville North while the Redhawks’ defense limited the Wildcats’ offense to 112 total yards to go along with a pair of Justin Wegner interceptions of Broc Rutter.
Behind a 20-point second-half effort and 147 yards from Devion Hodges, Glenbard North erased a 13-0 halftime deficit to stun Naperville North, 20-19, on Sept. 19.
Hodges’ game-high 217 yards a week later against Naperville Central weren’t enough for the Panthers as three interceptions for TDs from Mike Ulreich’s defensive charges helped stem the tide and hold off a late Panthers’ rally in a 28-14 victory.
“We just weren’t able to break the long one (against Naperville Central),” Glenbard North coach Ryan Wilkens said. “Devion had a boatload of carries and we were getting three, four, five (yards a carry). We just couldn’t get to the 30, 40, the 50. So their secondary is very good and their back six and seven play very well. They’re very quick up front.”
Wilkens believes the Huskies’ best chance at pulling off the upset would mean controlling the clock and trying to put the focus on Redhawks’ quarterback Conor Joyce.
The Redhawks are averaging just 104 yards passing as Kevin Clifford and Luke Brady have helped their offense average 139 yards rushing through the season’s first five weeks.
“If I were Naperville North, I’d try to shorten the game as much as we did. Just try to either grind the clock out and try to stop Joyce as much as possible,” Wilkens said. “The only problem is if those two receivers get even a little bit of space, it could go for a long one. That’s the only deal, obviously, with (Emmanuel) Rugamba and (Michael) Kolzow. I mean, those are two quality kids at the receiver position. But that’s kind of what we were thinking: try to stop the run and try to play receivers as best we could.”
With the two teams splitting the last four meetings and despite it being a while since he saw both teams in person, Ellinghaus put it concisely when discussing both Naperville schools.
“I think you can just expect a great football game when you match up those two football teams against each other,” he said.
