No doubt about it - South Elgin has arrived

Doubt, the internal enemy of all high school football teams, could have infiltrated the minds of South Elgin's players when they fell behind Marmion 14-0 after one quarter of the season opener.

Doubt could have crept in the next week at Vernon Hills, when the Storm allowed a 57-yard touchdown pass, which thinned their lead to 7-6 before halftime.

Or last week at Neuqua Valley, when South Elgin misfired on two first-half passing attempts that could have gone for touchdowns and missed 2 field-goal attempts, leaving the team in a 14-0 hole in the second quarter of the Upstate Eight Conference opener.

But one fact has become apparent through the first third of the high school football season: doubt and South Elgin don't belong in the same sentence anymore.

Against Marmion, the Storm rallied for 24 unanswered points to win the first season opener in the program's four-year history of varsity competition.

Against Vernon Hills, junior quarterback John Menken threw a second-half touchdown pass to junior Derek Hurschman, who also returned a fumble recovery for a score, and the defense pitched a shutout for the final 24 minutes to earn a 21-6 victory.

And last week the Storm rallied to beat Neuqua Valley 28-26, led by 3 touchdown passes from Menken to 6-foot-4 senior receiver Jake Kumerow, timely take-aways by the defense and a kickoff return for a touchdown by Brad Birchfield.

Three games, three victories. Each could have gone either way. Each went South Elgin's way.

"It shows that we have a lot of heart, more heart than the other team does," said senior middle linebacker Sean Kolber, a three-year starter. "We keep fighting until we get the victory. "The whole school is getting into it. Kids are actually finally coming to games and starting to believe in us. It's awesome."

The student body has reason to believe. South Elgin clearly has more talent and depth in its fourth season than it did the previous three. Infused by a talented junior class that went 9-0 as sophomores, a group Kolber called "almost like a gift with the talent they've brought to the team," the Storm's 3-0 breakthrough start has stamped the program as a legitimate playoff and conference title contender for the first time. And the players are loving every minute of it.

"Starting off 3-0 feels so good," Kumerow said with a broad smile before Tuesday's practice. "I knew we were going to be good this year because of what the juniors did last year, but I had no idea we were going to start out 3-0. This is how many games we won last year total and we've already reached that in our first three games. It's just outstanding. It makes you excited for the next week to see if you can do it again."

South Elgin's success can be attributed to improvement in all three phases of the game:

• The defense is allowing an average of 15.3 points per game, down from 27.7 a year ago. Led by ends Hurschman and Andre York, tackles Trevor Hansley and Hakiem Johnson and linebackers Kolber, Dillon Gardner, Jake Randich and hard-hitter Justin Wright, the unit has 12 take-aways in 3 games, including 9 fumble recoveries.

• The offense is averaging 24.3 points per game, up from 18.1 in 2008. Menken has thrown 6 touchdown passes, 4 of them to Kumerow.

"I think he's outstanding for a junior quarterback," said Kumerow, whose father, Eric, was an All-American at Ohio State before going on to play in the NFL. "He's a lot smarter than any of the quarterbacks I've seen. He makes good reads and doesn't throw the ball away too much. He and I have been hooking up even though we've never played on the same team before. We're starting to get in a flow and it's starting to work."

• Sophomore kicker David Reisner routinely boots his kickoffs to the end zone for touchbacks, as he did five times last week. He punts well directionally and averages 40 yards per attempt. He has missed a few field goals, but each attempt was from beyond 40 yards. Each had the distance but missed just wide.

Due to the marked improvement in all phases, South Elgin can realistically picture the playoffs. Perhaps more.

"The first thing is to get to five wins as fast as you can," coach Dale Schabert said. "That's goal No. 1. If you do that in a hurry, you can start thinking about a conference championship. But that plays out over the whole nine weeks. First you worry about getting 5 wins and playoff points, which, with the competition we've played, I'm sure we'll have enough if we get to five."

South Elgin doesn't not have an easy road. Its remaining opponents include St. Charles East (1-2), which has played a tough nonconference schedule, a new opponent on the schedule in Lincoln-Way North (1-2), the first meeting against sister school Bartlett (1-2), traditional Upstate Eight contenders Lake Park (2-1) and St. Charles North (2-1) and a Week 9 showdown against Larkin (2-1), the program Schabert led for 11 seasons.

Those teams are probably as wary of South Elgin as the Storm is of any of them. And teams should be wary. South Elgin isn't just talented and driven to win but is playing with the confidence forged by three victories in which adversity was overcome by a never-give-up spirit.

"They just keep making plays," Schabert said. "It's fun to coach and it's fun to watch them. It gave me a bit of emotion at the end of the Neuqua Valley game after seeing the heart of the kids, their will to win and how hard they fight."

The South Elgin football program has arrived, of that there is no doubt.

jfitzpatrick@dailyherald.com