Fremd receivers always ready and willing to learn

It is perhaps unconventional, but Fremd football coach Lou Sponsel likes it when his receivers make mistakes.

“I think they’ve understood mistakes are encouraged in practice, because that’s how we learn, and it’s not this fear mentality where you can’t make a mistake in practice,” said Sponsel, who has the Vikings in the Class 8A quarterfinals for the first time since 2009.

“It’s like, we want you to fly around, we want you to play full-speed, and if you make a mistake that’s how we learn.”

The other part of this is fixing those mistakes by game time. At 10-1, it’s obviously worked.

Combining the big arm of Northwestern-bound, all-state quarterback Johnny O’Brien and the skills of senior receivers Marquan Brewster and Jay Box, plus juniors Carter MacDonald and Ben Riddle, Fremd has schooled a lot of people after making mistakes in practice.

“We have very smart receivers,” O’Brien said during a Monday film session.

“They watch a lot of film, they study tape and they know coverages very well,” he said. “They obviously have a lot of physical talent with speed, good hands, great size, but I think the key part to their success this season has just been knowing defenses and knowing what windows to sit in.”

Joined by their coach, Fremd’s four top receivers discussed aspects of their job such as route-running, downfield blocking … and correcting errors.

“Every week in practice, like coach said, there’s some things that go wrong during practice and I feel like we do a really good job of working together to get those things right so by the time it’s Friday night we’re ready to go and it looks really good,” said MacDonald, a 6-foot-3 wideout with 36 catches, 351 yards receiving and 2 touchdowns.

Brewster, headed to Western Illinois University, likes the fade routes, likes the post, but said essentially every route is his favorite to run. He can take it to the house on any given play.

About 6-1, 170 pounds, Brewster has caught 68 passes for 1,042 yards and 13 touchdowns this season, along with a 60-yard kickoff return for a score against New Trier in Week 5.

Playing in the defensive secondary, in the first round of the Class 8A playoffs against Huntley, Brewster set a Fremd school record with a 98-yard interception return for touchdown.

It took a year or two for Brewster’s route running to catch up to his physical abilities.

“Probably sophomore year going into varsity, they really helped me out to get my route running really good. Then junior year, senior year, just keep improving it over the summer, keep working on my craft every day,” he said.

“We really just trust our system and our plays,” said Brewster, whom Sponsel described as calm yet as an intense a competitor as he’s seen.

“We’ve got Johnny ‘O’ throwing to us, especially, so it’s really easy out there. Just run the route hard, get the ball, score a touchdown. As simple as that,” Brewster said.

That’s easy for him to say. But when the Fremd offense is clicking, anything seems possible.

“We just build momentum, really,” said Box, 160 pounds of fast-twitch fibers. He’s caught 31 passes for 291 yards and 5 touchdowns, mainly out of the slot.

“We’ll all talk, we’ll all have our brotherly love in the huddle. We all just have trust in each other, and whenever we have trust in each other any play that we do is going to work.”

Box gets a kick out of blocking for receivers or O’Brien in the open field, and for the Vikings’ fifth-leading receiver, running back Jayden Faulkner.

“I like to get Faulkner open. I’m pretty aggressive,” Box said.

Riddle — “a quiet leader,” Sponsel said — leads Fremd in yards per reception, at 17.4 yards a catch. In the slot or splitting out wide the speedster has 38 receptions, 662 yards, 9 touchdowns.

“Slot, it’s usually more quick-hitting stuff, like up the seams,” said Riddle, 5-10, 165 pounds. “Outside, we’ll use some out routes and maybe longer-developing routes.”

He’s processing the specifics of his position.

“I’ve really learned how to manipulate a DB (defensive back), how to make him flip his hips early, try to get him to go a certain direction,” Riddle said.

Having four good hands guys who all can get open and do something with the ball after the catch is a good problem to have. Like puzzle pieces, they all fit together.

“It’s tough to have a team with a lot of mouths to feed, but these guys, they all support each other in their own way,” Sponsel said. “Four very different personalities, very different football players, but one unit that comes together on Friday nights.”