Marquette Academy begins second week of football camp

The Marquette Academy football team began its second week of summer camp Monday evening on the practice field just west of Gould Stadium.

This year’s camp, Crusaders veteran head coach Tom Jobst said, is much different than others in the recent past after the graduation of a number of players from last season’s senior-laden squad.

“Last year our summer camp was really just reviewing things, as we had so many returning players,” said Jobst, who has complied a 100-36 record in 14 seasons at Marquette. “This year we are trying to get the first-year varsity guys, and we have a few, or guys who are going to be in different positions up to speed. The hope is our time here in camp teaching means we won’t have to waste any time going over the basics when the official practices get started. We want to be able to get things going right from the start.

“They kids have done an excellent job in the weight room since the start of the year, we’ve had a really good offseason and a great summer. We don’t have that one guy who is strong as an ox, but we have a lot of guys who are pretty strong. ... I feel like we are a pretty balanced team in that regard. The seniors, all of them, are doing an excellent job of being the leaders.”

Marquette finished 9-2 in 2022 and earned a 10th consecutive trip to the IHSA playoffs, falling in the Class 1A second round to Dakota.

“We are going to have to come out for every practice and every game ready to compete,” senior fullback/middle linebacker Jacob Smith said. “We all know we lost a lot of seniors from last year’s team, and a lot of them were in key roles that will have to be filled. We are going to have to have confidence in everything from our coaches, our teammates, what we are working on in practice, to the game plans each week. We have to believe we can.

“I also think we are going to have to be an aggressive team, one that has a mean streak in us. We’re going to have big hearts and play hard every second of every practice and game.”

The Crusaders will, like in the past under Jobst, feature the buck sweep, the belly, the jet and the trap of the wing-T offense and will look to fly around and be aggressive on defense.

“I want this to be a good team that plays hard and well every week,” senior center Stefen Swords said. “We have some spots to fill from last year and a number of guys who lack experience, so we as seniors are trying to do the best we can to help the younger guys improve and gain confidence.

“We had a 7-on-7 here last week, and we started out a little slow in everything we were doing and made some mistakes. But as the competition progressed, we started to learn from them right away, and by the end I felt we were doing pretty well. The key I feel for us the season will be getting to the point where we are playing mistake free in everything we do. That’s a tough thing to do, but that’s what we are striving for.”

Senior running back/middle linebacker Pete McGrath said he has heard the talk about Marquette having a down season in 2023 as it begins play in the newly formed Chicagoland Prairie Conference with Dwight, Elmwood Park, Walther Christian, Ridgewood, Seneca, St. Bede and Westmont.

“You can’t control or worry about what others think or say when it comes to what kind of season they think you’ll have,” McGrath said. “Sure, we lost some key guys from last year, but I feel we also have a bunch of guys back who are pretty good as well. Everyone has worked hard in the offseason, and we are all committed to putting our best individual efforts together into being the best team we can be.

“I’m excited to see what we can do. I feel like we made a lot of progress in just last week’s camp alone, and we are hoping to double that this week. The key will be all of us sticking together no matter what and keep pushing each other to improve as we go.”

Marquette’s opening game of the season will take place Aug. 25 at Aurora Christian.