Goss: There is something different about this Joliet Central football team

The celebration has wound down.

The warm and fuzzy feeling will last, but it is time to get back to work.

That’s the way the Joliet Central football team is approaching Week 5 of the regular season after the Steelmen outlasted Southwest Prairie Conference foe Plainfield Central, 38-35, Saturday in what was an incredible homecoming game, start to finish.

Incredible in that if you didn’t know it, you never would have believed the two teams had come in having lost a combined 89 games. The Steelmen had not won since the Joliet Township district reinstated separate programs in 2010, and the Wildcats have not tasted victory since Week 8 of the 2012 season.

The current players on the two rosters, of course, were involved in only a small portion of the streaks. But the burden of getting the monkey off the program’s back was theirs.

As Central coach Brett Boyter said after Saturday’s wild finish, it was a shame there had to be a loser on this day. If there ever was a time when two teams deserved victory, this was it.

“This is surreal, really,” Central senior defensive lineman/linebacker Bobby Ogden said a few minutes afterward. “This does not happen every day. We were getting a little tired there at the end, but we knew we had to keep going.”

All along, Boyter has said there is something different about this group of Steelmen. These kids get it. They are a true football team, with each player willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

“The biggest difference from the past to this team is how these kids can put stuff like that (the Steelmen’s 71-0 loss at Oswego East the previous week) behind them and move ahead,” Boyter said.

“I’m so happy for these kids and their parents. To see them competing and now to get the outcome they wanted on the scoreboard, I don’t how to describe it. This (winning) now is the expectation, not the exception.”

Program transformation

Ogden, who was involved in two tackles for loss Saturday, said the real transformation in the Central program began early in the summer.

“We came in and the coaches taught us something new,” he said. “We thought it would be the same old stuff, but there was nothing old about it. There were new training methods, new plays, a different mindset and a different mission statement. The other team is not going to break down, and we can’t, either.”

There were times during the Plainfield Central game that no less a figure than the player of the game and last-minute hero, the Steelmen’s JoJo McNair, admitted to having some doubt about whether Joliet Central would hang in and get that elusive victory.

“When I told guys I had doubts, they said to fight through it,” McNair said. “Marcus Stone (who made a key interception in the first half) was telling me to keep playing.”

“What these kids did is prove to themselves that they can win football games,” Boyter said. “Until you actually do it, you are going to have some doubt.”

Keep playing. Never take a single play off. Ogden admitted that occasionally happened with some Steelmen in the past, but not anymore.

“We put a first and second half together today and we never gave up,” he said. “We know none of us can ever take one play off. You might think it’s only one play, but it could cost you everything. This game showed that.

“What we have done is create our own men of steel. The men of steel did win. This was the start of our new season. What the coaches have been preaching works if we do our job every play. The way we see it now, we’re not going to lose any more games this season.”

Whether that proves to be a true statement on the scoreboard remains to be seen. But there is no doubt the Steelmen are prepared to play like winners every time out.

Offensive execution huge

A big part of the reason Joliet Central has the monkey off its back is offensive execution. The Steelmen were not in the habit of scoring a legitimate 38 offensive points – not even close.

But on this day, quarterback Zach Wisneski completed 20 of 30 passes for 280 yards and four touchdowns. McNair caught eight for 142 yards and three scores and rushed for 91 and another score. Frank Fiegel caught six passes for 77 yards and a touchdown.

I mentioned to Boyter that one guy who had a great day was his offensive coordinator, Tony Juarez, a former Joliet Township head coach in football and baseball.

“Tony could be a head coach again, anywhere,” Boyter said. “My three coordinators – Tony with the offense, Kyle (Knezetic) with the defense and Brian (Levicke) with special teams – really, all I do is turn everything over to them. They do the work.”

The crowd Saturday was in excess of 2,000 to see two teams as hungry for a victory as any ever will be. It is difficult to imagine that anyone who was there – incidentally, Plainfield Central fans filled the visitors’ stands – will not want to return to watch their favorite team over the final five weeks of the season.

Imagine what winning this football game is doing for the morale at Joliet Central, and how proud the alumni of the program are. Imagine what the impact at Plainfield Central will be when first-year coach Jon Pereiro’s Wildcats put that first notch in the left-hand column.

That is coming soon. You can feel it. The two teams we saw Saturday put together a football game we will not soon forget, and both are ready to do more winning.

• Dick Goss can be reached at dgoss@shawmedia.com.