By Bryan Bloodworth
BLOOMINGTON – In today’s initial installment of Countdown to Kickoff, we’re going to lay out the game plan for the next three weeks of our preview coverage of Illinois State, Illinois Wesleyan and high schools teams in the immediate WJBC and wjbc.com listening area.
The story lines are numerous starting with Illinois State where the Redbirds will be gunning for their fourth FCS playoff berth in five years and a school-record third in a row. They also are taking aim on a third straight Missouri Valley Conference title, which would be another first in school history.
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ISU coach Brock Spack, who enters his eighth season, at the helm with 15 returning starters from last year’s 10-3 team. The Redbirds are ranked 10th in the preseason national poll and fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference preseason rankings.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Division Street, Illinois Wesleyan looks to build on last year’s 7-3 record in Coach Norm Eash’s 30th season at the helm. For the seventh straight season, the Titans have been picked third in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin preseason poll.
On the Intercity high school front, there are two new coaches as Joe Walters was hired to take over at Bloomington High School for the retired Rigo Schmelzer and Trevor Von Bruenchenhein was promoted to head coach at University High to replace Mike Troll.
Walters will be looking to get the Purple Raiders into the playoffs after a two-year absence, while Von Bruenchenhein will have the Pioneers gunning for their sixth straight playoff appearance in their final year of competition in the Corn Belt Conference before moving to the Central State Eight Conference.
Walters spent the last six seasons as head coach at Peoria Notre Dame where he compiled a 42-23 record. Von Bruenchenhein has been an assistant with the Pioneers the past six seasons.
Other story lines pertaining to Intercity teams heading into the season include playoff streaks at Normal Community, Normal West and Central Catholic. NCHS has a run of 20 straight appearances on the line, while Central Catholic aims for its 13th straight and West looks for its seventh straight.
And on the area front, the Heart of Illinois and Corn Belt conferences take on a new look as Eureka left the Corn Belt to join the Heart of Illinois leaving the Corn Belt with Central Catholic, U High, Olympia, Pontiac, Prairie Central, Mahomet-Seymour and IVC .
And with Eureka’s move to the Heart of Illinois, it caused the league to be divided into large and small school divisions. Competing in the large school group will be defending Class 2A state champion Tri-Valley, El Paso-Gridley, Ridgeview, Deer Creek-Mackinaw, Fieldcrest and Eureka.
Schools in the small school group are Fisaher, Flanagan, Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley, Heyworth, Tremont and LeRoy.
Also, there are three new coaches in the area as Brian Bradshaw takes over at Heyworth where he has served as a volunteer coach for the Hornets the last 11 seasons.
And Kirk Brandenburg takes over at Prairie Central, while Jake Kennedy hopes to lead Ridgeview to its first victory in three years to snap a 28-game streak. Once again this year, the Mustangs will have the services of Lexington High School players in a co-op agreement between the schools, but unlike last year the co-op won’t include players from Blue Ridge High School.
We’ll start our week-long look at teams in the WJBC listening area tomorrow as we check in on Pontiac and Prairie Central before shifting the focus to Intercity schools next week before concluding the Countdown to Kickoff series the following week with the focus on ISU and IWU.
The Countdown to Kickoff extravaganza will air two times daily beginning in the Scott Laughlin morning show at 6:40. It will also air at 5:40 during the Dan Swaney afternoon show.
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at [email protected]
