With its defense a year older, better, PR up for rematch

Three days before Halloween Prairie Ridge defensive lineman Brad Knipfel relaxed at home by watching the football equivalent of a horror movie -- a copy of his team's 56-42 loss to Oswego in the second round of last year's Class 6A playoffs.

"It wasn't pretty," said Knipfel, a gregarious, bearded, 6-foot-2, 240-pound senior.

That loss wasn't the defense's fault alone. Two bad snaps on punts set up easy Oswego touchdowns early in the game and turnovers by the offense contributed to PR's 28-0 halftime deficit.

Nevertheless, the defensive unit came away battered and bruised after surrendering this chilling statistic: 435 total yards.

But unlike the victims in most slasher films, the Prairie Ridge defense lived to fight another day.

Tonight, thanks to an ironic plot twist within the Class 6A playoff bracket, the PR defense gets a chance to prove itself against Oswego in a postseason rematch.

"We're definitely excited for this game," said inside linebacker Zack Zuidema, a team co-captain along with Knipfel. "They did knock us out of the playoffs last year, but this week we're real confident in what we can do against this team."

Zuidema (6-0, 215), who leads the Wolves with 61 total tackles, has reason for confidence in his defense, mainly because it's a much different unit than the one that took the field last year at Oswego.

For example: In that 2006 playoff game Prairie Ridge head coach Chris Schremp and seventh-year defensive coordinator Andy Petersen started four sophomores, including safety Will Mack, cornerback Dean Halaz and linebackers Brad Young and Jeff Kapaldo. Several more key starters were juniors.

That unit allowed an average of 28.3 points per game.

"They were much-maligned, I guess, after last year," Schremp said. "You know, they were hearing, 'You guys are terrible,' and stuff like that. I'm sure it motivated them."

With nine starters returning to a defensive scheme the PR coaching staff calls a 3-5 -- a slight variation in terminology if not scheme from the 3-3-5 defense run with great success in recent seasons by Cary-Grove -- the Wolves are holding teams to an average of 13.5 points per game.

That's a one-year improvement of 14.8 points per outing. The Wolves have allowed 120 fewer points than they did through 10 games a year ago.

"What sets us apart from last year is that we're a much more experienced team," said Petersen, who played football for Joe Petricca at Palatine High School and for Bill Mack at North Central College in Naperville. "We're starting a lot of upperclassmen, a lot of seniors, guys who have played two or three years on the varsity level."

Older players always help, of course, but experience doesn't guarantee improvement. Continued hard work by the players and the coaching staff alike helped mold the Prairie Ridge defense into the solid unit it has become in 2007.

"The kids spent a heck of a lot of time in the weight room," Schremp said. "Physically, we were stronger this year.

"And we're confident in what we're doing. We run a defense that's kind of out of the ordinary, so it takes some time to learn and get used to. It's nothing they played in junior-level ball. So, we went in last year and we played four sophomores on defense and people said, 'Oh, Prairie Ridge can't play defense.' Well, name me a school that could with four sophomores playing."

The coaching staff first instituted the 3-5 scheme two seasons ago, but used it sparingly. The Wolves switched to the more complicated system full time in 2006.

"Coming in as a junior there were lots of things to pick up in this defense: contact points, different plays," said Knipfel, who has 36 total tackles, 5 for losses. "This year everything's just clicking because most of our team has been around this defense and it shows. We've just been working so hard on it."

The coaches are still working hard to perfect the system, too. But Petersen admits life is a lot easier now that the staff is rounded out by three Illinois High School Football Coaches Association hall of famers: Grant Blaney, who has 48 years of coaching experience, including the 1986 Class 6A title at Buffalo Grove; secondary coach Bob Bradshaw, who had 201 victories in 33 seasons at Woodstock and Johnsburg, including a state title at Woodstock in 1983; and Mack, who amassed 122 wins in 21 years as head coach at Crystal Lake.

"Each year as a coaching staff we're growing," said Petersen. "You can only learn from having these guys with us. I wish I'd had these guys with me six or seven years ago, but I'm trying to soak in everything I can."

Now Prairie Ridge has a defense to match its prolific offense, an improvement that was evident right off the bat in the Wolves' first two victories against Jacobs and Cary-Grove, each of which managed just 14 points against the Prairie Ridge defense.

"They needed to come out and have a couple of great games early in the year," Schremp said of his defense. "And you could tell the difference once they got some confidence and felt good about what they were doing."

Schremp and the Wolves plan to show Oswego that difference tonight.