Everybody's working for the weekend
The countdown is over. Prep football is back.
It's been nine months since eight teams won state titles in DeKalb, and now the focus shifts to a trip to Champaign this Thanksgiving weekend.
Our Eyes on Five column returns for another school year in hopes of bringing you all the football news worthy of a good long look.
1. Pack the place:
On the back page of the DuPage County Sports Extra section in Friday's Daily Herald, we give fans a reason to see each of the 28 teams in our coverage area.
Please take the advice and head out to a game...lots of games.
For nine months players and coaches have been working feverishly in lonely weight rooms and on blistering summer days preparing for this weekend. Now comes the reward of finally playing in front of friends and family.
Nearly 300 games will be played in Illinois this weekend. Beyond friends and family, entire communities will come out on what should be a beautiful couple of days. Tens of thousands of football fans throughout Illinois gathering for a common purpose.
What other activity matches that level of camaraderie?
Make sure to be a part of something special.
2. Plenty to see:
You couldn't ask for a better crop of opening-night games in DuPage County.
Wheaton Warrenville South travels to Wheaton North and Glenbard North plays Naperville Central in a couple of doozy DuPage Valley Conference games. Of course all four DVC games are doozies on Friday.
Even the nonconference schedule is loaded. Glenbard West plays Bolingbrook, Montini takes on Maine South and Bishop McNamara faces IC Catholic Prep. That's just naming a few.
The one downer? No Saturday games, which means some tough choices must be made.
3. Changes:
Honestly, it's been a relatively stable year for prep football around here.
Now let us pause for a moment while we all knock on wood.
As opposed to the conference upheaval we've seen in recent years in the DuPage Valley, Upstate Eight, Metro Suburban and other conferences, only a few tweaks occurred after the 2015-16 school year ended.
The minor changes involved the flipping of a couple of teams between conference divisions. In the Metro Suburban - now separated into Blue and Red divisions instead of West and East - St. Edward moved to the Blue as Aurora Central Catholic shifted to the Red.
A similar situation occurred in the Interstate Eight Conference, where Peotone moved into the Small Division and Herscher switched to the Large Division.
After crossing over with the DVC for one game a week last season, the UEC this year is crossing over with the Fox Valley Conference. That left the DVC schools struggling to fill their schedules, and four eventually had to schedule an out-of-state game.
The stability is nice but don't expect it to last. From north, south, east and west, there are constant rumblings about more mass conference changes.
Enjoy the peace while you can.
4. From us to you:
Game stories, scores, columns, notebooks, statistics, standings, player profiles...you'll find a little bit of everything in the DuPage County Daily Herald sports section this season.
You'll obviously find it in the newspaper each day, and you'll find it at football.dailyherald.com.
We've also got you covered on social media. On Twitter you'll find me (@kevin_schmit), Dave Oberhelman (@doberhelman1), Orrin Schwarz (@Orrin_Schwarz) and other members of our team.
You'll also want to give a Twitter follow to @DHDuPFootball, where you'll see live game updates each Friday and Saturday in addition to links to our stories.
We'll be coming at you from all angles with our football coverage.
5. Stat time:
From now clear through to Week 9, it's all about becoming one of 256. That's the number of teams statewide that'll qualify for the football playoffs.
As we embark upon the journey together, we wish the best of luck to everyone.
Follow Kevin on Twitter @kevin_schmit