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Friday Night Drive Power Rankings: Major upheaval in the middle of the rankings

Three teams move into the poll

Prairie Ridge's Luke Vanderwiel celebrates a touchdown \with teammates, Braeden Kehl and Samuel Ramirez, during a Fox Valley Conference football game against Huntley on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, at Huntley High School.

On paper, Week 7 appeared to be a fairly non-threatening one to those teams ranked in the Friday Night Drive Power Rankings.

In reality, it proved to be very much so.

Three of the Top 10 teams (Fremd, St. Charles North and Loyola) all lost. Two of those three teams lost to unranked teams.

It also made clear something that has been percolating for almost the entire season. Two of those three teams that lost hadn’t lost prior to Week 7 and the environment for teams to remain undefeated this season hasn’t been kind.

Just seven teams in the rankings are still undefeated. There are only 36 teams still undefeated statewide. Most of those 36 teams are from smaller classifications.

There are only two teams in each of the classifications between 6A and 8A that still have the opportunity to finish the regular season undefeated. Several of those have at least one challenging game in the final two scheduled contests.

So basically, more teams are likely to add losses in this mix.

That upheaval led to the inclusion of three new teams into the Top 25. Providence, fresh off that win over Loyola, rocketed all the way up to No. 15, while Lake Zurich enters at No. 24 and Kenwood arrives at No. 25.

Here are the complete Friday Night Drive Power Rankings:

Steve Soucie

Steve Soucie

Steve Soucie is the Managing Editor of Friday Night Drive for Shaw Media. Also previously for Shaw Media, Soucie was the Sports Editor at the Joliet Herald News. Prior to that, Soucie worked at the Kankakee Daily Journal and for Pro Football Weekly.