‘Are you excited?’ Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland opens 2024 camp

FLANAGAN – After assigning numbers and handing out equipment, sixth-year Flanagan-Cornell/Woodland coach Todd Reed opened Monday’s first day of full summer camp practices with a question.

“Are you excited?” he asked the 30 or so young men reporting for the eight-man football co-op of once fierce Midstate Conference rivals. “Are you excited? My blood’s flowing, guys. We’re here!”

Despite graduating a handful of last season’s top players who led FCW back to the Illinois 8-Man Football Association playoffs and a postseason win before running into eventual state champion Amboy/LaMoille/Ohio in the quarterfinals, this fall’s Falcons do, indeed, have reason to be excited.

That starts with a second straight large, battle-tested corps of seniors.

“We are really fortunate to have back-to-back classes that were huge – not only big classes, but great kids,” Reed said. “We had awesome seniors last year, and we follow with this group of seniors this year who have been in the program a long time and have bought into what we’re doing.”

An unquestioned leader in a senior group that also includes such familiar names as QB/DB Seth Jones, WR/DB Zander Radke, WR/K Connor Reed and fellow linemen Blake Ruddy, Calix Stout, Adam Westerhold and Cohen Schneider is I8FA All-State selection OL/DL Aydan Radke.

“I definitely think we’re going to have to step up more, Seth [Jones, the team’s returning senior quarterback] and I and the other seniors, a lot more. As far as the seniors we’ve lost go, we lost a lot of depth, but we have so many talented young guys coming up who have taken to the program. They’re lifting a lot, learning our plays and our defenses and everything ... and a lot of team bonding over weights.

“It’s pretty exciting.”

Before 2023′s 8-3 campaign – a six-win improvement over the fall before – Reed and his coaching staff put a renewed emphasis on the weight room, utilizing voluntary, scheduled lifting programs at both Flanagan-Cornell and Woodland schools. That emphasis hasn’t changed, and with it has been added a devotion to bringing an admittedly small sophomore class and larger freshman class fully into the program.

“Same kind of game plan,” Reed said. “These guys really bought into it when we were preaching weight room this offseason. They saw the reward from last year, and it really carried over to this offseason.

“These two weeks are really important, especially for our underclassmen getting acclimated to our program and what our program’s about. That way the first day of [official] practice, we’re going full steam ahead and not doing the baby-stepping thing.”

A highlight of these two weeks of full camps will come Friday, when the Falcons take part in Blue Ridge’s 5-on-5 tournament, an eight-man friendly variation on the 7-on-7s traditional 11-man football teams typically spend much of their summers competing in. In addition to adding a competitive element to the summer and this year a chance for linemen to test themselves in weightlifting and, more notably, wing-eating challenges, it also will be an opportunity for an FCW passing game Reed expects to take on a larger role this fall to work out the kinks.

A third-year starter, Jones says he and his receivers – with whom he’s spent time in the offseason running player-led workouts, including expected top threats Connor Reed, Zander Radke, Logan Ruddy and Leelynd Durbin – are ready to shoulder more of the offensive load.

“I’ve been throwing the ball in the offseason, and just having another year under my belt will really help,” Jones said. “Knowing I have guys I can trust also helps. ... Every time we runs routes in practice, we’re working on our timing. It all just comes together, and the [5-on-5s] definitely help for me, being able to look up the field without worrying about the pass rush.”

FCW will use these two weeks and the two weeks of IHSA-sanctioned preseason practices next month to get ready for the 2024 season opener Aug. 30 at West Prairie/Southeastern.

“As long as we stay committed and stay focused and come together,” Aydan Radke said, “we’re going to go as far as we want this season.”