Brian Iossi is expecting big things from a defense he thinks will be one of the best in his years at Burlington Central.

After Friday’s Week 1 performance, you can see why.

Burlington Central held Crystal Lake South to 52 yards of offense, including zero in the second half, during a 21-0 shutout in Crystal Lake.

“There are a lot of kids that are back on this defense, and boy do they fly around,” Iossi said. “We’ve been talking about it all offseason, and it’s one of the most athletic defenses I’ve ever coached. We made a couple of adjustments, and I really thought they flew around all second half.”

The Rockets dominated the line of scrimmage with seven plays that went for negative yardage, including two sacks and a tackle for loss from Aidan Nuno. Matthew Bending also had a sack and a tackle for loss as the Gators could only amass five first downs.

“All hats to the ball at all times,” Nuno said. “Pursuit was amazing. Our secondary was amazing and our defensive line did their assignments. Obviously there are some things we can sharpen up, but I thought we played amazing.”

Offensively for Central, the look was a bit different from a year. However, the Rockets produced big plays on third and fourth downs multiple times and had some very promising moments.

Central went 65 yards on seven plays to open the game with quarterback Landon Arnold scoring from five yards out. Arnold then completed two big passes on third and fourth down on the second drive. The latter was a big 17-yard touchdown pass to Samuel Ames on fourth-and-4 to make it 14-0 early in the second quarter.

The Rockets had a modest 229 yards of offense and do have some areas they would like to clean up. That included some snap troubles, which nearly ended the first drive of the second half before a nifty reverse play to Gavin Bergemann went for a 13-yard touchdown on fourth and goal.

Arnold made just one major mistake and finished 5 of 7 for 58 yards with a touchdown and an interception. He left the game in the third quarter only as a precaution after taking a hit. Iossi said he should be fine for Week 2 against Cary-Grove.

As for the other sideline, while it was a rough night for the Crystal Lake South offense, the defense did provide some promising signs. After Burlington Central’s opening two possessions, defensive lineman Camden Moffet stuffed the Rockets on fourth-and-1 to end a drive. Then the Gators tallied an interception on the next Central offensive play.

“I told my guys we have to lean on our defense. They’re very senior-heavy,” said Gators coach Rob Fontana.

“(The game) was a couple of plays, and you can say that about any game, but they had a couple of big plays. They hit a fourth down. For us, we’re always preaching about getting turnovers and had a pick in this game. I thought they did really well. I was excited about the way those guys were playing.”