CCL is Treated
Very Well in the Preseason Rankings
Several Top 25 Illinois
High School Football rankings were released by various media outlets this week.
All of those rankings contain many of
the Chicago Catholic League (CCL) teams we discuss weekly on THE Varsity Voices Podcast. In fact, they were very good to the CCL, full stop. Does "full stop"
mean that is all I have to say on the matter? If so, NOT full stop.
If you are a CCL fan, you really don't have anything that you can complain about, but as long as there are rankings of anything, there will be observation, discussion and disagreement. I think I am at the discussion level on this and while I don't agree with all the rankings, and who would, I do think there are items to discuss. It is interesting what the media outlets did and there were some eye openers of picks.
No surprise that Loyola Academy is a consensus #1. They return outstanding, future college level players at key positions, have a tremendous coaching staff, and experience winning state championships. That is tough to bet or pick against. I think Loyola does everything well, every year. Can I say the same thing about Mt. Carmel? Yep. Returning studs, great staff and experience winning at the highest level. I am not surprised, but pleased, to see the respect Nazareth Academy received, falling into most top 5's. Five is where I would have them, and I think they would make the top 4 very nervous were they ever to line up in a championship game scenario.
It is at this point that we start to see some variance in the polls depending on the rankings. No surprise, Joliet Catholic seems to be consistently in the top 15, but several outlets are ranking Brother Rice in this same area. There are no secrets anymore and people know that Brother Rice, despite finishing 5-4 and getting walloped by Batavia in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, is back with high impact new faces from both transfer and injury. Marist also starts to get some attention in this area. Marist is a non-playoff team from 2023, but the Redhawks are widely regarded as the top team to miss the playoffs last year. A product of the "head-banger," "meat-grinder", "masher," "gauntlet," ...pick a phrase as they all describe the CCL, there will be at least one team like this in 2024.
St. Francis has rankings all over the board, from as high as 6 to 25, but as expected, they are consistently a top 25 team in the area. The same can be seen with Providence Catholic, who like the rest of these schools, have their sights set on a state title in 2024. The 17-25 range produces very mixed results, although I have seen the following teams all ranked in various outlets...
Immaculate Conception
Carmel Catholic
St. Ignatius
St. Rita
The team that can add these rankings to their bulletin board material is Montini. Consider that in 2023, Montini lost to Byron 26-20, giving up a late score to drop the State semi-final game. Byron went on to beat Mt. Carmel (Mt. Carmel, Illinois Golden Aces) 69-7! Montini returns between 16-20 starters of players that received significant playing time including their QB, top WR, a loaded defense and playmakers all over the field. If you are looking ahead like “The Prognosticus”, the mythical prediction creature, make a note for Friday, September 13, when Montini travels to Marist, which is a very tough place to play. It will tell us a lot about these rankings and give us an early preview of the CCL “Meat Grinder”.
