Nearly a full 21 months have passed since Naperville Central laid claim to the 2013 Class 8A state title on Northern Illinois’ campus in DeKalb.
While a majority of the members of that team have graduated, the legacy of that group remains firm.
Last year, a nine-win season and a trip to the Class 8A state quarterfinals followed as an immediate encore.
Thanks to having an experienced group back on offense, the Redhawks have their eyes on going just a little bit further in 2015.
“This team wants to be good,” Naperville Central coach Mike Stine said. “They want to be better than good. We know to survive the DVC this year, you got to be a quarterfinalist-caliber team. So you got to be that first up front, just to get to the playoffs. If you can get there, you got a shot to make a run at the title. I know that’s what our goal is. Some of these guys were part of that two years ago.”
After a junior season that saw him complete 58 percent of his passes for eight touchdowns while running for 164 yards and six TDs, Conor Joyce returns to lead an offense that expects to hit the ground running.
The presence of Iowa-bound Emmanuel Rugamba, who caught 27 passes for 298 yards and three TDs, to go with Aurora Christian transfer Jeremiah Wiggins and tight end Jack Piper gives Joyce extreme confidence.
“I’m loving our O-line right now,” Joyce said. “Most time I’ve ever had. Got great skill guys. Jack Piper, tight end, he’s been able to do a lot of different stuff that we haven’t been able to do in the past year. Manny, Jeremiah, Luke Brady—they’re all running the ball really hard and it’s helping out a lot.”
Brady steps into the role vacated by 2014 DuPage Valley Conference Offensive Player of the Year, Kevin Clifford.
Clifford ran for 1,571 yards and 11 TDs, which undoubtedly helped Joyce get more and more comfortable as the season wore on.
With Clifford now gone, Brady will be given the opportunity to build upon the 12 carries for 108 yards and two TDs he got in limited time last year.
“Luke is a little bit different kind of runner than Cliff,” Stine said. “Cliff was that jitterbug kind of guy. Luke is a one-cut guy and he’s more of a power kind of runner. He’s a downhill, one-cut guy and he’s worked really hard in the offseason. We’re expecting good things from him.”
Stine admits it’s kind of a 180-degree turn from a year ago coming into the season where the team had a better idea of what they had defensively as opposed to offensively.
To that end, defensive coordinator Mike Ulreich must replace his top three tacklers from last year.
Bobby McMillen, who has headed to Iowa State, recorded 140 tackles from his middle linebacker spot, and Cam Conners and Justin Wegner paced the secondary with 80 and 73 tackles, respectively.
Cornerback Jon Barker’s 73 tackles and linebacker Rick Hatton, who recorded 58.5 tackles as a junior, are the top two returnees in tackles.
Garrett Purdy, who had 40 tackles and five interceptions last year, returns to help Barker in the secondary.
“Those guys—they were all really good players last year,” Stine said of Hatton, Purdy and Barker. “They’re seniors this year. They’ve all had great offseasons. We expect a lot from them and we know that we’re going to get that from them.”
Trent Graves, Joe Graf and Laddie Skarecky at linebacker, Christian Rohland and Christian Nussbaum on the defensive line and Luke Turner in the secondary are names people will get to know.
Ulreich will build his defense around his three returning starters—Hatton, Purdy and Barker—and Rugamba, who’ll play defensive back in college, will continue to play both ways.
“Defensively, they’re untested but we really like what we see, what we have,” Stine said. “They just got to get a little bit more game experience.”
A year ago, Naperville Central won a share of the DVC title with Wheaton Warrenville South—the program’s first piece of it since 2001.
Designs of grabbing the program’s first outright DVC title since that 2001 season, which saw them go 13-1, are quite evident.
With that said, they’re keeping things simple.
“It just comes within ourselves,” Joyce said. “We know there’s a lot of expectations, but our motto is go 1-0 each and every week and if we take care of that, it’ll eventually lead to playoffs and then just carry on from there.”
