With the start of high-school football practice less than a month away, many of the state’s top rising seniors have made their college choices.
But one notable exception is Crete-Monee’s Jeremiah Stonewall.
The 6-1, 185-pound running back is one of just seven players ranked in the top 50 in Illinois in the 2027 cycle who haven’t picked a school.
Stonewall, who was a force in the Warriors’ pass and run games last fall, is the consensus No. 38 player in Illinois in his class according to 247Sports. He’s also the No. 81 running back in the country.
He has nine offers from Power Four schools at last count. His Big Ten offers are Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Purdue and Wisconsin, while his SEC offers are Missouri and Ole Miss. Stonewall also has Big 12 offers from Kansas and Kansas State.
With the graduation of the elite pass-catch duo of quarterback Derrin Couch and receiver Dorian Patterson (now at New Mexico), Stonewall figures to play an even bigger role in the Warriors’ offense. Crete was 8-3 last season, winning the Southland title and reaching the second round of the Class 6A playoffs.
New playoff goals
With the IHSA football playoffs expanding by 50% this fall, many teams’ goals have changed.
So it is at Manteno, where the old objective was captured in the phrase “drive for five.”
Five wins usually guaranteed a postseason berth under the old system, in which 256 teams qualified. Now, with the field going to 394, the bar to get in is expected to be three wins.
“The way I’m going to frame it … the mindset will be, just making the playoffs shouldn’t be the goal anymore,” Manteno coach RJ Haines said last month. “Because we’ve done that. So it’s about winning games in the postseason. So it (doesn’t) matter what it looks like getting there, it’s about winning those games when you get there.”
The Panthers are 5-11 all-time in the playoffs, with all their wins coming in a three-year stretch from 2014-16.
Manteno reached the Class 4A quarterfinals in 2014 and advanced to the second round each of the next two seasons. The Panthers bowed out in the first round each of the past two years.