It’s no secret that many people going to watch Lincoln-Way East play this season are there, at least in part, to see Jonas Williams.

A word to the wise for those fans: Get there early.

For the second straight week, USC-bound quarterback Williams led his team to a running-clock victory Friday, this time topping Kankakee 41-0 after beating Maine South 40-0 last week.

Williams only played in the first half as the Griffins used strong play on offense, defense, and special teams to build that 41-0 lead before intermission, invoking the running clock for the entire second half. In that first half, Williams went 16 of 22 through the air for 274 yards and three touchdowns.

Even scarier for the Kays, Williams had a 7-0 lead before he even took a snap.

Kankakee (0-2) received the opening kickoff. East’s Jacob Alexander, a University of Illinois commit, set the tone and stopped the Kays’ Zayden Henley for a yard loss. The Kays had to punt, and the snap went over the punter’s head and rolled into the end zone. Lincoln-Way East’s Aidan Cavanaugh recovered the loose ball in the end zone, and Grant Urban’s extra point kick put the Griffins ahead 7-0.

Kankakee went three and out on its next possession, but this time got the punt off, and Lincoln-Way East took over at its own 38.

There, Williams went to work. He was 5 for 5 on the drive, with four of the completions going to Matt Orban for 58 yards, including a 10-yard post pattern for a touchdown and a 14-0 lead with 6:56 still to play in the first quarter.

“I know our defense is not going to give up many points,” Williams said. “But when they put points up before we even get the ball, that’s amazing. Football isn’t a game where you are perfect, and it’s nice to know that we have a great defense that is going to step up when the offense isn’t perfect.”

That defense stepped up again on the next Kankakee possession. After allowing the Kays’ initial first down of the game on a 24-yard pass from Phillip Turner to Cedric Terrell, the Griffins forced a fumble on the next play and Alexander recovered it on the Kankakee 33. Williams hit Brody Gish with a swing pass out of the backfield for a gain of 26, then Gish ran it in from seven yards out to make it 21-0 with the first quarter barely half over.

The Griffins took over at their own 40 after a Kankakee punt. A pair of Williams completions got them to the Kankakee 23. Gish then broke free for a 20-yard run and, after an incompletion, scored on a three-yard run for a 28-0 lead with 2:57 to go in the first quarter.

The Griffins forced another punt and took over at the Kankakee 47. A pair of penalties pushed them back and, on 4th and 12, Williams connected with Blaise LaVista on a go route for a 49-yard TD after overthrowing him the previous play.

“I overthrew him twice,” Williams said. “I was glad we finally connected on one. Tonight, we were trying to go through some more of the playbook, but it’s nice to know that I can always get it to Blaise if I need to.”

The Griffins capped the scoring and assured the running clock for the entire second half when Williams hit Will Schlinger with a 25-yard screen pass for a touchdown.

The defense put up its second straight shutout, limiting a talented Kankakee club to 116 total yards. Turner ran 12 times for 33 yards and completed 6 of 17 passes for 49 yards.

“Overall, it was a great game for us,” Lincoln-Way East coach Rob Zvonar said. “We give our kids tangible goals, and one of them was to be unbeaten in our nonconference games. We did that, now we go into conference and our goal is to win the conference championship. Then, we want to go deep in the playoffs. But the first goal was accomplished tonight.

“We did improve from last week, but there were still parts of our game that weren’t real sharp and we’ll work on those. But, we are always pleased to get a win against a good program like Kankakee. Offense, defense, special teams, we did well in all three phases tonight.”

Kankakee coach Ed Hazelett has seen a rough schedule already in his first year, losing to Nazareth Academy last week and Lincoln-Way East on Friday.

“There’s definitely a lot we can learn from our first two games,” Hazelett said. “Nazareth and Lincoln-Way East are two teams that will let you know what you have to work on. We got our eyes opened these first two games.

“We did see some improvement from last week to this week. We’ve had a bit of a bug hit us this week and we had some guys out sick. There are better days ahead for us.”