April 19, 2024
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Friday Night Drive’s Power Rankings: Week 7

By Steve Soucie

Joliet Catholic's Ryan Louthan (34) runs the ball during the varsity football game between Joliet Catholic and Brother Rice on Friday, October 8, 2021 at Brother Rice high school in Chicago, IL. (Tony Gadomski /Tony Gadomski for Shaw Media)

Back in the summer, when a few teams were scrambling to fill out their regular-season schedules, one of the teams that had trouble filling out the slate was Joliet Catholic.

The program’s past pedigree certainly had something to do with the lack of volunteers lining up, and the expectation that the Hilltoppers were likely going to be a load this fall didn’t help.

Very late in the process, Joliet Catholic was still looking for a game. So was Loyola.

I suggested to Joliet Catholic coach Jake Jaworski that we should line that game up even though arguably the Hilltoppers had already put together an imposing schedule that would make most blanche.

Jaworski laughed off the suggestion with the school eventually settling for Missouri powerhouse Cardinal Ritter instead.

But after watching the Hilltoppers offensive explosion Friday against then top-five ranked Brother Rice, I can’t help but wish I would have pushed a little harder to see if we could have made the Loyola game happen.

Because now I really want to see it.

Here are the full Friday Night Drive Power Rankings: