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Everything registered at once when he saw them through the bus window.
He had seen them hundreds of times before, but the red and green glow of the Christmas lights caught Cory Bielema’s eye. The holiday decorations had begun to pop up. It was Black Friday in 2009, the day after Thanksgiving, but the day was anything but black for the Morrison football team.
The Mustangs were on their way home after trouncing Maroa-Forsyth, 36-14, a few hours earlier in the Class 2A state title game in Champaign. The win punctuated an undefeated 14-0 season.
“When you see those lights, it hits you that it has been a long season,” Bielema said. “You’re playing football for a long time. You think back to workouts in the summer months and, all of a sudden, Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas lights are out.
“There is a craziness that goes along with all of it because before you know it, you’re already into January. Then before you know it, it’s June and you’re getting ready for the next season. You just have to take a deep breath and move on.”
For one of the first times during that 2009 season, the bus was loud. A focused and serious team was replaced with a loud and celebratory team. Bielema, in just the second year of his first head coaching job, had taken a talented team and made them into champions.
November 27 marks the 5-year anniversary of the day the Mustangs brought the first football state title to Morrison.
• • •
Near the end of the trip home from Champaign, a fire truck met the team bus about 10 miles outside of town on Interstate 88, near its intersection with Route 78. Like a runway worker landing an airplane, the truck led the team back home and down main street.
“The whole thing looked like a giant parade,” said Kyle Janssen, a running back and defensive back. “People were lined up everywhere, just cheering and clapping. It looked like the whole town was on main street, and they were there for us. It was pretty special.”
Janssen remembers when the town started to rally behind the team during that season. The Mustangs beat Newman in Week 2, which was just the fifth win over the Comets since 1996. Then, the Mustangs they took out a previously unbeaten Bureau Valley team in Week 7.
“When we had wins against those teams, I think the whole town went all in and believed in us,” Janssen said. “All of a sudden we started seeing signs around town and people we wouldn’t know would come up and say hi and good job to us.”
“We weren’t ranked at all going into that season,” said Josh Vos, who became Morrison’s all-time leading rusher after the season. “After the first few weeks, when we beat Newman and handled Bureau Valley, we all started to believe. It was an exciting time.”
• • •
The 2009 Morrison team was a powerhouse in every sense of the word. It barrelled through teams throughout the regular season behind a punishing rushing attack from a trio of backs, and stifled opposing offenses with a stellar defensive group.
The Mustangs scored 504 points over 14 games, while allowing 123. The defense pitched four shutouts, including one in the playoffs in a second-round win over Eastland-Pearl City.
The state title game was much of the same. It was a crisp 37 degrees by first kick at 1:06 p.m. The Mustangs fell behind early and trailed 7-0 at the end of the first quarter. But in typical fashion, the Mustangs scored 29 straight points, a scoring run that stretched into the fourth quarter. The defense had an interception, two sacks and two fumble recoveries.
“The biggest thing about that team was they were very athletic,” Maroa-Forsyth coach Josh Jostes said in a recent phone interview. “All of their skill spots, the quarterback, the tailback, they were all really good.
“What hurt us most was [Vos], the wing back. No matter what we did he ran positive. We knew he was going to get his and we knew they would be a run dominated team, one that’s very physical, and that’s what did us in.”
Jostes said that he would be surprised if Vos’ name wasn’t voiced in more preparation rooms than any other player on that 2009 team. And it was for good reason. Vos became the Morrison all-time leading rusher at the end of that season with an impressive stat line.
He finished with 2,115 rushing yards to go along with 34 total touchdowns, 31 of which came on the ground. He was a menace on defense, too, racking up 123 tackles, seven sacks and an interception. He also earned Sauk Valley Media’s player of the year award.
“It was a good time,” Bielema said. “Looking back on it, a couple of years removed, I took it for granted. It went by too fast and I regret not enjoying it.”
• • •
On the surface, Bielema looked like found success as a coach right away. He won two state championships at Morrison during his first four seasons at the helm. His record from 2008 to 2011 was an impressive 45-6. But his journey to that first championship followed a winding road that even he wasn’t sure when it would straighten out.
He was hired as a science teacher at Rock Falls in 1997, and got his first coaching gig as the Rockets freshman football coach, but that season was cancelled due to low participation. His next stop was to Sterling in 2004 where he served as a varsity assistant football coach at Sterling under head coach Greg King.
The next year, he was hired as a biology teacher at Morrison in 2005 and was the golf coach, before joining the Mustangs football team as a defensive coordinator in 2007 under coach Scott Rickels.
Rickels resigned at the end of the season and Bielema was next in line for the head coaching position. Bielema went 8-2 in his first season, before leading the team to an undefeated 14-0 record and a state championship in 2009.
• • •
Morrison’s toughest test that season came in the semifinal game against Orion. The Mustangs defense needed three goal-line stands to turn away the Orion offense to preserve a 14-7 win and a championship game berth.
“Those three stands at the goal line was probably one of my favorite memories of that year,” said Janssen, who had one of two interceptions along with Will Bird in the closing minutes to preserve the win.
Bielema never doubted his team. He had watched them all year act more mature than their age, and he was sure they could handle the moment.
“There was never really a time where we said, ‘whoa, this is the playoffs or the championship game,’ “ Bielema said. “They just never really got worked up about games. Every week it was just about this opponent, at this venue, this week, even when it was stepping onto the field at the championship game.
“I remember being impressed. I took for granted the business-like attitude that those 16, 17, and 18-year-old kids had.”
On the Illinois football field was one of the first times the players allowed themselves to celebrate. Quarterback Andrew Cook took a knee to run out the clock to ice the program’s first state title and the party was on.
“Just that feeling of lining up in the victory formation was amazing,” Janssen said. “We weren’t hurrying to score a touchdown or hurrying for a first down. Everything just felt right in our world.”
“It was like you’re in a dream,” said Corey Modglin, the team’s bulldozing center. “It almost wasn’t real. It was like you were watching it all happen from a different place.”
• • •
It has been 5 years since that undefeated 2009 team completed its impressive championship run. Now, the players have scattered and started new lives.
Modglin, who paved the way for backs like Vos, Janssen and Conner Bealer, figured his position and skill-set on the line wouldn’t translate to the college game. Instead of playing football, he decided to attended a vocational school in the Sauk Valley that builds homes in 2 years. There, he learned a valuable trade.
“I got hands-on training and I realized that plumbing was always going to be around,” Modglin said. “They make pretty good money, too. I got into a job after school, ended up being laid off and I ended up going to Sauk.
“I just got out recently. Leaving home for the first time and living on your own is different.”
Modglin is now a plumber living in a small town outside of St. Louis. He is a sales representative for the company, and works mostly in the southern Illinois town of O’Fallon.
Janssen also decided to go the trade route. He, too, figured playing football in college wouldn’t lead him anywhere. He is now an electrician working in his hometown of Morrison. He will be taking an exam in 2 weeks to become licensed.
“It was tough, but I figured if I wasn’t going to be a doctor I felt like there was no point just to play football,” Janssen said. “I wanted to do a trade.”
Vos is still scoring touchdowns. He plays football at Luther College, where he will finish his exercise science degree when he graduates in the spring. He plans on working as a physical therapist.
Linebacker Patrick Wagenecht is in the Air Force and is now married and has a child. Bealer is an engineer at an Exelon nuclear power plant. Zach Greul, a lineman, is a prison guard in Joliet. Matt McDonnell still attends Morrison football practices and helps out with the football team.
“It’s funny, these guys were all my great friends,” Modglin said. “But once some go to college or get jobs, everyone scatters. We try to keep in touch as much as we can, but I know that we’ll always have that championship to connect us.”