Scouting Palatine at Glenbrook South

CLASS 8A

No. 14 Palatine (6-4) at No. 11 Glenbrook South (6-4)

When: 1 p.m. Saturday

First-round results: Palatine d. No. 3 Glenbard North 28-14; Glenbrook South d. No. 6 Barrington 35-28

Playoff history: Palatine is making its 16th appearance and fourth straight under Tyler Donnelly. The last of its four quarterfinal trips was in 1997. Glenbrook South is making its 18th appearance and sixth straight under Mike Noll. Last year's quarterfinal trip was its third.

Matchup history: Palatine won the only meeting 9-8 in the first round of the 1991 playoffs.

Outlook: Who will continue the Cinderella run as both teams pulled first-round upsets? “They played a phenomenal game and that gets your attention for sure,” said GBS coach Mike Noll of Palatine. “They took it to a very good DVC (DuPage Valley Conference) team and that's scary.” Both teams opened up 28-point halftime leads last week, but it got a bit scary again for Glenbrook South after it lost a 31-point lead and its regular-season finale to Evanston. It never got quite that tense for Palatine as Glenbard North scored its final TD in the final three minutes. “They remind me a lot of us, they're scrappers and they play hard and play disciplined,” said Palatine coach Tyler Donnelly. “We can't make the mistakes we made in the third quarter (last week) against this team or we might lose. Hopefully we learned our lesson.” Do-it-all John Strickland has rushed for more than 1,200 yards for the Titans, but Kyle Kwasniewski is also a running threat and QB Matt Jenkins threw for 3 TDs last week. “They run a lot of play-action and a lot of misdirection,” Donnelly said. “They're like us where they're wing-T based, just not out of the shotgun. We have to play a lot of disciplined football.” Having QB-S Cody Bobbit (1,780 yards passing, 15 TD, 4 INT; 605 rushing, 8 TD), RB-LB Jim Smearman (854 yards, 14 TDs), WR-DB Dan Haze (35 catches, 465 yards, 4 TDs) and WR-DB Jesse Bobbit (31 catches, 402 yards, 3 TDs; 5 INTSs) going both ways has been a big boost for Palatine. “One of the things we have to do is match their intensity because they play really hard,” Noll said. “We haven't seen too many quarterbacks like (Bobbit) this year.”

Advancement: Palatine would host a quarterfinal and Glenbrook South would be on the road against No. 2 Loyola (9-1) or No. 10 Fremd (6-4).