Friday Night Drive Power Rankings: East St. Louis moves into top spot

Preseason polls are extremely difficult to try to put together.

With every team, it has to be considered whether or not a team lost too much to graduation to keep ahold of a lofty perch or maybe another team is likely to surge based on the exact opposite factor.

Since debuting, the FND Power Rankings have consistently ranked East St. Louis very high in the preseason. And while some years they’ve lived up to that billing others they haven’t. That’s the nature of polls for a lot of programs, not just East St. Louis.

Entering 2024, there were few teams that were harder to get a handle on in terms of ranking than East St. Louis. They’d taken some significant hits to graduation, but the program historically tends to reload rather than rebuild.

When the preseason poll was released, East St. Louis was No. 4, ultimately having little idea whether that was too high or too low.

Saturday night, East St. Louis demonstrated with clear authority in a resounding victory over the two-time defending Class 8A State Champions from Loyola that it was definitely too low.

The Flyers ascended to the No. 1 spot taking the spot previously held by Loyola, who suffered their first loss in 19 games with the setback.

Two teams that lost still held spots in the Top 25. Loyola and East St. Louis swapped placed with the Ramblers dropping to No. 4, while Mount Carmel’s loss to a very strong team from New Jersey, The Hun School, seemed to be the kind of loss that almost any other team in Illinois likely would have lost to had they locked horns with them instead.

There were five new teams that entered the FND Power Rankings this week.

Barrington appears to be the biggest omission from the preseason polls as it pops into the Top 25 at No. 14. Other newcomers are Marist (No. 21), St. Charles North (No. 23), Lyons (No. 24) and Homewood-Flossmoor (No. 25).

Here are the complete Friday Night Drive Power Rankings: