Ahead of schedule: Even with few seniors, Grant delivers best record in 14 years
Grant quarterback Connor Evans has vague memories of his school's last playoff victory.
He was 3 years old at the time but on the sideline because his father, Tom, has coached football at the school for more than 30 years.
“I was on my uncle's shoulders,” Conner said. “It was cool watching that.”
The game itself wasn't particularly memorable, a 59-0 win over Lake View. But that 2012 contest was both Grant's last home playoff game and the most recent postseason victory.
One of those streaks is over. The Bulldogs will host a Class 6A playoff game Friday against Notre Dame. Will the victory drought end on the same night? Stay tuned.
The entire Grant season has been a pleasant surprise, though maybe not to players and coaches. The Bulldogs have a very young team, with just two senior starters on offense and six on defense.
They graduated a number of seniors who had been three-year varsity starters, so logic suggested this would be a rebuilding year in Fox Lake. Instead, Grant finished 7-2, beat Wauconda, took Antioch to the final minute and lost a fourth-quarter lead against Mundelein in Week 1. That's how to secure a home playoff game for the first time in 14 years.
“I feel like we came into the season with a big chip in our shoulder and we carried it through the offseason,” Evans said. “I think we came in with something to prove and that really motivated us.
This performance was not a surprise to fifth-year head coach Tim Norwood and those on the inside.
“As a coaching staff, we were excited about this group,” Norwood said. “We thought they had it in them. From the outside, everyone thought of it as a pleasant surprise, but we really thought this group could accomplish what they did. We told them right off the bat, too, in the offseason.”
Leadership has been important at Grant over the years. The Bulldogs were playoff regulars under coaches Mark Barczak and Kurt Rous from 1999-2012. After a lull, Norwood has Grant in the playoffs for the fourth straight year.
Within the team, he credits the three senior captains — Evans, center Luke Youngberg, and middle linebacker Wyatt Cornell — as the best he's had. Their leadership style has been to take what they learned from last year's seniors, build off it in some cases and improve on it in others.
“I kind of knew coming into it, these guys are looking up to me,” Cornell said. “There's a lot of sophomores that are looking at how to act on varsity. So just portraying the right message, being like an older brother to these guys.”
“Some of the guys last year, they really thrived on pushing the culture on us, making sure we weren't taking shortcuts,” Youngberg added. “The new guys that came in, they've really stepped up and made a difference. We're really proud of them.”
Grant is running an option offense, averaging 250 rush yards a game, and spreading the carries among three junior running backs — Doltyn Longtin, Jackson Fudala and Michael Potempa. Speed at the wingback spot gives the Bulldogs some big-play potential. Longtin (736 yards) and Fudala (684 yards) have been the leading rushers.
Notre Dame (6-4), with its rugged schedule in the CCL Purple Division, will be a challenging matchup. A Grant win would be a nice full-circle moment, not only for Connor Evans, but also his father, the wide receivers coach and special teams coordinator. Running backs coach Kyle Whitman starred on some playoff winners during the Rous era.
“After watching the last playoff win, it's really surreal and cool to be the quarterback now, having an opportunity to have a playoff game at home,” Connor Evans said. “We were counted out this year, I'd say, but we took that as an opportunity to shock everybody. That's just been the attitude we carried all season.”
Like they say, Grant has been counted out before.