Pride and passion on IC Catholic’s offensive line starts with the head coach

Then known as Immaculate Conception, the 2002 Knights football team completed a major turnaround to win the Class 3A state title. They’d gone 4-5 the year before.

Playing left guard for the Knights in their 21-14 title win over DuQuoin was 18-year-old senior Bill Krefft, who doubled as a starting linebacker.

Jumping ahead 24 years, now at IC Catholic Prep, Krefft is the Elmhurst school’s 15-year head coach. He also directs a strong, deep offensive line that’s helped earn the No. 1 ranking in Class 3A with a 7-0 record entering Friday’s home game against unbeaten 8A power Loyola.

Krefft’s desire and will is infused into the program, and it directly translates to the linemen he coaches.

“Just his level of intensity, like his passion for the game. It really just rubs off on everybody, it makes us want to play better,” said senior right guard Cash Kasper.

“He just puts in so much effort to make us play better because he wants it just as much as we do,” said the 6-foot-2, 230-pound Kasper.

A hallmark of IC Catholic football under Krefft is an offensive line rotation that can go eight or nine deep. Sometimes that’s due to necessity. Also, Krefft said, he can play that many because “our younger kids are good.”

Due to long seasons that have resulted in four state titles, one semifinal appearance and four quarterfinal berths in Krefft’s 14 seasons, underclassmen have extra opportunities for late-season, late-game snaps.

Three-year starting center Anthony Sebastian, also a two-time all-state wrestler headed to Stanford, said he got his first varsity repetitions as a freshman in IC Catholic’s quarterfinal season of 2023.

Kasper and Sebastian are part of a rotation this season that includes Mike Silveyra, Stevon “Duke” Sims, Landon West, and 6-foot-4, 305-pound Northern Illinois University commit Josh Shaw.

“I’d say it’s a special group. There’s different traits that define them,” said Sebastian, a team captain.

“I’d say my sophomore year we were a little smaller but more fast. Compared to now, I think we have the size, we have the physicality, but the speed’s still there. That never changed. It’s just a special group of guys that are willing to put it all on the line every play,” he said.

Sims, a 5-foot-11, 260-pound junior left guard who has started for the Knights since Week 4 last season, focuses on speed and technique.

“That helps me out a lot, knowing I don’t have the arm length and height as these other guys,” he said.

Sims, who played on the Elmhurst Bears youth program along with other IC linemen including Kasper, Sebastian, Silveyra and West, came into the program as a center but shifted to guard.

“Anthony and Cash, they took me under their wing and they taught me that tenacity up front, and to just come in and be that unit, to take over games,” Sims said.

There’s always room for a mauler up front, but Krefft’s zone-blocking philosophy in the spread offense also places a premium on mobility, foot speed and flexibility.

“If you talk about, like, staying square, our punch and our get-off, the way we get leverage on people by different angles of zone, I think that’s something that is spread throughout all our players from the time they come in,” Krefft said.

“More than anything we want our ‘O-line’ to be physical and disciplined. If we have a physical and disciplined O-line we’re in good shape.”

Krefft also thinks his linemen are pretty smart. They’re smart enough not to overcomplicate things and play within themselves, Sebastian said.

“Do your one-eleventh,” he said.

His pal Kasper agreed.

“It doesn’t matter who you’re lined up against, you just have to do your job every play,” Kasper said. “Win one play, and then win drives, and then that’s how you win games.”