Steve Soucie’s Week 2 games to watch: Is it conceivable that a Week 2 game is a must win?

Simply put, it seems silly to consider a Week 2 game a must win contest for almost any team in Illinois.

Sure, it is unsightly to start the season potentially 0-2 if you also dropped a season opener, but almost everything is possible to be recovered from.

But if you dig deeper you start to see several situations where a Week 2 game is about as close to a must win situation as a team can get. There’s also more than one circumstance where you can see where a Week 2 outcome could affect the fortunes of one’s entire season.

Consider this. A team drops its season opener and finds itself in a quagmire of an eight-team conference where the upper half is filled with powerhouse teams that be difficult to overcome.

That potential team, if it already enters Week 2 loss and can look ahead to multiple land mines in their conference, even in the era where you might get in as a 4-5 team, that’s not going to be an ideal seasonal experience.

There’s a lot of teams that face the possibility of falling to 0-2 this week and some of those teams aren’t very familiar with being in that position. The two most notable programs that face this possibility, Mount Carmel and Loyola, don’t often lose season openers. And going back through almost 30 years of IHSA football results, the two power programs have never lost in Week 1 in the same year prior to this season.

Here’s a few of the pivotal games on tap in Week 2:

Marist at Brother Rice, 7 p.m. Friday: The Battle of Pulaski looks like it is poised for one of its more storied chapters in a the long-standing rivalry. The two schools, which are separated by a little over two miles on Pulaski Road, both enter the game on a high note as Brother Rice dominated Phillips in Week 1, while Marist welcomed back former assistant coach Mike Fitzgerald, who built a dynamite program at York in the interim, as the head coach as they held Morgan Park in check for a win.

Glenbard West at Loyola, 1:30 p.m. Saturday: Both Loyola and Glenbard West are licking their wounds a bit after losses in Week 1 which puts them on somewhat equal footing as both programs try to avoid an 0-2 start. Loyola almost never loses a season opening contest, only having it happen once in the last 15 years while Glenbard West is simply try to survive a four-game stretch to start its season that has all four opponents currently ranked in the Friday Night Drive Top 25.

Warren at Maine South, 7:30 Friday: Warren was one of the surprises of Week 1. Not necessarily that it defeated Hersey, but that the defensive minded Blue Devils appear to have a high power offense to deploy as well. Maine South probably doesn’t relish squaring off against another explosive offense after getting more than they wanted from Lincoln-Way East in Week 1, but in order for the Hawks to avoid dropping to 0-2 they will have to adapt and adjust quickly.

Joliet Catholic at Oswego, 7 p.m. Friday: This non-conference matchup wasn’t scheduled until late spring when both programs resolved that there weren’t many viable options other than locking horns. Oswego seems ready for the challenge with its top flight defense while Joliet Catholic flexed its muscles rather brusquely in dispatching Iowa City.

Fulton at Lena-Winslow, 7 p.m. Friday: Lena-Winslow has pretty much been the unquestioned frontrunner in the Northwest Upstate Illini Conference for going on a decade. The closest pursuant tends to be Forreston, who was handily rather roughly by Fulton in Week 1 as the Steamers won 28-0. Does Fulton have what it takes to challenge Lena-Winslow’s thrown?

Other games of note: Normal Community West at Normal Community; Mount Carmel at St. Rita, Kenwood at Nazareth; Lincoln-Way Central at Providence; Tri-Valley at LeRoy; Tolono Unity at St. Joseph Ogden; Washington at Kankakee; Barrington at Hersey; Wauconda at Kaneland; Morris at Joliet West; Naperville Central at Naperville North; York at Plainfield North; Princeton at Rockridge.