Grant takes out Antioch
At some point, Kurt Rous's No. 1 motivational method will become irrelevant.
The Grant football coach loves for his players to feel like the Rodney Dangerfields of Lake County. He's always pointing out how they get no respect and how no one on the outside ever believes in them.
His Bulldogs are true underdogs, he'll say.
The funny thing is, the Bulldogs have wound up being top dogs against some of their toughest opponents this season.
Two weeks ago, they dealt previously undefeated Antioch its only loss of the regular season and essentially forged a three-way tie for the North Suburban Prairie Division title with the Sequoits and Lakes.
On Friday, they made sure to let everyone know that their previous success over Antioch wasn't a fluke.
In a game with even more on the line, Grant dismantled the host Sequoits for a decisive 19-7 victory in Class 6A first round playoff action.
"Can people say that beating them (Antioch) twice is a fluke?" a Grant player screamed rhetorically amidst the mayhem of the Bulldogs' jubilant post-game huddle.
Better yet, can Rous keep calling his Bulldogs, who held Antioch to just 17 yards of offense in the second half and 116 yards overall, underdogs?
Grant, which started the season 1-2, has won six of its last seven games and is now headed to the second round of the Class 6A playoffs. The Bulldogs (7-3) will face another Prairie Division foe: Lakes, a 38-35 winner over Rolling Meadows.
Antioch, meanwhile, ends its season with an 8-2 record.
"I don't really think we are underdogs anymore. I knew we could do this," said Grant fullback Jonathon Wells, who rolled up 222 of his team's 288 rushing yards. "We beat Antioch a first time and I knew we could finish it off and show everyone that we're not always the underdogs against teams like Antioch."
Wells certainly dogged Antioch from start to finish.
Not only did he finish with great numbers, but he deflated the Antioch defense every time he gained extra yardage with people riding his back or hanging around his waist. And he did that often.
With Grant trying to ice the game and Antioch desperate to get the ball back, Wells made a spectacular play that summed the night for him.
The Bulldogs had just gotten back-to-back penalties and were facing a first-and-30 at their own 30-yard line with about five minutes left. Had Grant not been able to advance the ball, Antioch, down by just 12 points at the time, could have started a rally with great field position.
But on the next play after the penalties, Wells ran for an improbable first down by juking his way left and right for 30 yards. He got the last few of those yards by running with a defender glued to his jersey.
And yet, he was determined to keep moving forward. And did.
"He's a man," Rous said of Wells, who was asked to shoulder his normal load plus the load of leading rusher Kyle Whitman, who was out with a concussion.. "Wells is just a sophomore. It's going to be scary to see what he is doing two years from now as a senior."
Wells went over 1,000 rushing yards for the season to join Whitman on that list. And quarterback Alex Villa is about to hit the 1,000-yard rushing mark, too. He had 55 yards and 2 touchdowns against Antioch.
A key for Grant was that its defense put shackles on Antioch's star 1,000-yard rusher: Danny Arden.
"They played a good physical brand of defense," Antioch coach Brian Glashagel said. "And we couldn't block very well."
Antioch was without veteran offensive lineman Lee Shannon, who went down in the first Grant game with a season-ending knee injury. And junior lineman Mark Lyman had to be taken off the field by an ambulance in the third quarter because of a broken leg.
So, Antioch's already banged up offensive line got thinner as the game progressed. And that made Arden's life even tougher.
Arden was held to just 63 yards on 18 carries. This season, he had multiple games in which he rushed for far more than 100 yards.
"I don't know what was happening," a choked up Arden said after the game. "They (the Bulldogs) were just making plays, wrapping up and not missing tackles.
"I love these guys on my team. I never wanted it to end like this."
The beginning of the end for Antioch came in the third quarter when the Grant defense clamped down again and forced a fumble. Dillon Watters picked up the ball and ran 35 yards for a touchdown.
That gave the Bulldogs their first lead of the day, 12-7 with 7:13 left in the third quarter, and plenty of momentum.
"That wasn't me, the credit goes to my teammates," said Watters, who had never scored on a fumble recovery before. "We forced their quarterback to make a bad pitch and the ball bounced right in my chest.
"We have a tackling drill called TS-cubed. It's 'Tackle, strip, scoop, score.' Every week we practice it. I think the play was big for momentum. Our team stepped up after that."