Plano
Focuses On Unfinished Gridiron Business
Reapers Begin Preparing For The Goal Of A 3A Football Title
By Bill Lidinsky
June is not usually the month when many are thinking of football. Instead, baseball
is well underway and the thoughts of high school gridiron contests are still
at least a month or two in the distance.
Don’t expect the Plano varsity football team to adopt this way of thinking.
In fact, the Reapers who provided fans with such a magical season in 2005, are
already in full swing with what they hope will culminate in an IHSA Class 3A
state championship come late November.
After bowing out to Tolono Unity in the 3A semifinals last fall, all of Reaper
Nation realized that they were only one step away from accomplishing the ultimate
dream of a state title. So this season brings renewed confidence and very early
preparation at beginning the new run toward taking care of some unfinished business.
“We all have the attitude early on way before the season even starts that
we won’t be satisfied unless we win a state championship,” said
Plano senior standout Nick Nasti. “We got to the semifinals last year
and lost when we really thought we could’ve won it all. So now our focus
is on improving and making sure we accomplish our goals and getting going early
with some hard work in June will hopefully put us on the right path.”
The Reapers have embarked on a series of football camps designed to measure
skill levels and progress along with pinpointing deficiencies long before the
season officially starts in late August.
On Friday June 16 Plano took part in a camp hosted by Oswego East High School
that provided the participating schools with three non scoring, light contact
scrimmages. The Reapers did battle with Marmion, Plainfield South, and Yorkville
that day with the host school and fellow Interstate Eight Conference foe Lisle
also being participants.
“We got things started this year with the seven-on-seven scrimmages at
Oswego East. We were really pleased with how things went there,” said
Plano head football coach Jim Green. “The kids responded well and we just
seem like we’re so much further along than we were during the summer last
year which we should be. We’ve got the same coaching staff intact from
last season and we’ve got a great group of kids coming back and it didn’t
seem like they’d forgotten a whole lot. They were pretty impressive there.”
Up next was a three day, thirteen team camp hosted by Olivet Nazarene University
in Bourbannais on Monday June 19 through Wednesday June 21.
Each day provided ten, 15 minute non contact scrimmages utilizing both eleven-on-eleven
and seven-on-seven formats at various times.
The Reapers asserted themselves immediately on day one in the first session
versus 8A power Nequa Valley by thoroughly dominating their bigger opponent
in the first two scrimmages.
“I think Nequa Valley came in thinking that Plano was a little scrub team.
But by about the third or fourth play they realized that we were a legitimate
squad to be reckoned with,” Nasti said. “Their coach really let
them know that they got their butts beat by a 3A school.”
The camp continued for the next two days and by all accounts was a huge success
for the purple and white.
“We took 32 players to Olivet and to learn what we learned was very nice.
A couple of years ago we didn’t even have 32 kids that went out for varsity
football,” Green said. “After improving on some mistakes from the
camp on Monday we really asserted ourselves on Tuesday and Wednesday and we
feel very good about our performance and the direction we’re going well
ahead of where we were in 2005. The Olivet camp gave us some great team unity
as well because we all lived together for three days and two nights. It was
a great experience.”
The Reapers continued workouts this past week with an eye on fine tuning what
more than likely will be another top ranked football team in 2006.
“We know we’re not going to shock anyone this season. Teams will
be waiting to play us. We want to build this squad into a championship program
in 2006 and not have to wait 25 years like we did in the past to produce a champion,”
Green said. “We’ve gotten some tradition back from last year and
now we’ve got to deliver on the great promise that we have going into
2006. Our overall goal is to go undefeated in the regular season and get a number
one seed going into post season so that maybe we’re playing at home in
the semifinals. We want to make it to Champaign during the final week of the
playoffs instead of the week before.”
Plano’s first game of the 2006 campaign will be at home versus Lisle on
Friday August 25. Reaper Nation is poised with anticipation on what could be
a landmark year on the gridiron in terms of success and adulation. Preparation
for the high hopes is certainly well under way.