There is a school of thought that Mount Carmel, with its immense of talent on its roster, hasn’t played to its full potential this season.

Head coach Jordan Lynch as much as admitted to it after Saturday night’s Class 8A semifinal matchup with Lincoln-Way East.

And while the Caravan weren’t flawless on Saturday they certainly showed the immense potential of what they can do when its talent blends with an inspired effort as they breezed to a berth in the state semifinals with a 48-7 victory.

“This is the first time we’ve played it pretty close to a complete game all year,” Lynch said. “And its scary when that happens. I know we have some big time athletes but we’re still learning and we’re still growing.

“You still haven’t seen the finished product. And that’s good for us.”

Mount Carmel (12-0) faces Fremd (11-1) in the state semifinals next weekend. Fremd defeated Bolingbrook 34-33 in its quarterfinal matchup. Time and date of that contest has not been announced.

The Caravan threw down the gauntlet immediately, needing less than three minutes to score as Nathan Samuels scored the first of his three rushing touchdowns on the night from 29 yards.

“Our whole week of practice it has just been 100,” Samuels said. “It’s just been 1’s vs. 1’s. It’s been amazing, we just executed and we all came out fighting.”

Lincoln-Way East (9-3) immediately showed signs of what was going to be problematic for the Griffins all game. Mount Carmel’s size and speed advantage in the trenches wasn’t able to be contained and abundant time wasn’t available for standout quarterback Jonas Williams to find much room to manuever.

As such the Griffins’ opening drive was snuffed out near the midfield stripe when Williams was sacked for the first of many times on the night and the Caravan would go on the march once again, ultimately scoring on an 22-yard touchdown pass from Emmett Dowling to Quentin Burrell.

Lincoln-Way East tried, and in this case, succeeded with a response. Williams hit Jayden Cawthorn with a 19-yard reception that would give Williams the state’s all-time career passing yardage record and two plays later he’d find Jack Murphy with a 35-yard strike that pulled the Griffins to 14-7.

But it was one of the very few moments of celebration for the Griffins, who would proceed to struggle to contain the many facets of the Mount Carmel offense for the rest of the first half. The Caravan ripped off the final 28 points before the break and rolled into halftime up 42-7.

Samuels would end up with nearly 200 yards of total offense in the game while Dowling finished 21-for-32 for 317 yards and four touchdown passes, including a 59-yard score to Jamari Brown which would set the running clock in motion for the majority of the second half.

Mount Carmel would amass nearly 600 yards of total offense in the game.

Lincoln-Way East was never able to find any offensive momentum. The Griffins rushed for negative yardage in the contest and any time Williams seemed to be getting close to finding any sort of rhythm he was either supremely pressured or toppled over for a sack.

Williams finished his storied his school career going 12-of-26 for 178 yards with one touchdown and a pair of interceptions.

“It wasn’t the way we wanted to execute, for sure,” Williams said. “It was just kind of the way the ball rolled today and you just got to take it on the chin.”

It is the fifth consecutive year that Lincoln-Way East has seen its season end at the hands of a CCL/ESCC powerhouse (the last four seasons have ended with losses to Loyola).

“It’s just the speed, and the physicality, and the efficiency, and the precsion and obviously the talent,” Lincoln-Way East coach Rob Zvonar said. “They did everything right and we just didn’t have an answer for that.

“I take my hat off to them. That’s an elite team.”