Friday Night Lights Still On In Illinois?
With tackle football postponed until next year, 7-on-7 leagues could fill void
(photo credit: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram)
On a humid weeknight in late July, dozens of football players blank the sidelines at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora.
Referees wear zebra-printed shirts and coaches articulate instructions. A few fans litter the stands, the stadium lights turned on. The scene give all the appearances of a typical mid-summer football scrimmage.
Only it isn’t.
Players wear t-shirts and shorts. The quarterback quickly throws the ball to one of five receivers. Defenders touch the receiver with two hands, ending the play. Even an unseasoned football observer would notice the open gaps on the field players normally fill, the expansive softness of it all.
That’s what happens when seven players on one side line up with seven on the other. And when helmets and pads are locked away.
Some dismissively call 7-on-7 football basketball on turf. But with no tackle football for the rest of 2020 in Illinois, the only Friday night football fans will get this late summer and fall may be the back yard, invite your neighborhood buddies over, two-hand touch kind.
Pull up a lawn chair and pop open a cold beverage.
J.R. Niklos is a football guy. He played the sport at Ohio State and Western Illinois and for six seasons in the NFL.
Post-playing, he immediately transitioned to coaching and training. He has developed a clear philosophy when it comes to developing athletes. For the six months he has them over the winter and spring, make them stronger and faster. When the calendar reaches June, turn them over to their high school teams.
“We build off of football programs in the off-season,” Niklos said, General Manager of the Naperville-based Midwest BOOM football. “There are some club sports like volleyball or soccer that completely take over high school athletics. We don’t do that. We’ve always been a supplement.”
BOOM trains athletes year round. It is also a farmhouse for 7-on-7 football teams and leagues from all over Chicagoland and surrounding states Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana.
How BOOM’s 7-on-7 calendar works is this—in December and January, when tackle football is over, it holds tryouts. The best players are picked for travel teams in the 18U and 15U age groups. February is when competition begins. Earlier this winter, BOOM played in an indoor tournament at the Chicago Fire indoor facility on Chicago’s Northside.
“We create an all-star team and we travel state-to-state to face their best athletes,” Niklos said.
After a trip to Las Vegas for a tournament in March, the world changed. The coronavirus pandemic forced a shutdown.
In June, activity resumed when the state went to Phase 4. BOOM teams traveled to Dallas and Tampa for tournaments. Highly touted 2021 grads such as Warren’s Malachi McNeal and Bolingbrook’s Andrew McElroy, as well as 2022 grad Tyler Morris of Nazareth, were ready to leave BOOM and begin their high school seasons.
Wednesday, the IHSA announced tackle football would be postponed until 2021.
The news was rumored for many weeks. The stoppage leaves a participation gap for hundreds of players hungry for competition.
“Staying fresh and competing in a serious way is all we want,” Warren senior defensive back Marc Davila said.
Niklos sees an opportunity to fill that competition gap, albeit in a truncated form conforming to public health guidelines.
Also on Wednesday, the The Governor’s office published an “All Sports Guidance” document pertaining to youth and adult recreational sports, including travel and private clubs. 7-on-7 is considered a ‘medium’ risk sport, classified as a ‘Type of Play Level 2.’ According to the “All Sports Guidance” document, that classification restricts play to ‘intra-team scrimmages’ with ‘no competitive play.’
Nikos admits he did not see the Governor’s document coming. For weeks, he and his staff had been preparing to rebrand BOOM into a regional travel 7-on-7 program, with players located in the DuPage Valley Conference playing teams in the Chicago Catholic League or Mid-Suburban League facing teams in the North Suburban Conference and others. Every football player in Chicagoland could potentially participate.
“We were going to go more regional all-star teams and compete against each other,” Niklos said. “We already talked to our kids and they were excited about it.”
But Wednesday’s announcement has him scaling down plans.
“We’ll do a football academy. Training is still allowed and anything within the group,” Niklos said. “Kids have to do something. We have to give them some sort of avenue for them that they can be excited about within the Governor’s parameters.”
Even with limitations on competition, players realize benefits from being on a football field and getting repetitions.
Davila, along with McNeal, compete for BOOM’s highest-level 7-on-7 squad, 18U Black. He said 7 on 7 is a legitimate companion of tackle football.
“It forces you to stay attached to your double moves, getting zone coverage down and stuff like that,” Davila said. “It really flows better during the season with tackle.”
Davila said he expects to participate in some form of 7-on-7 during the remaining months of 2020.
McNeal, a 6-foot, 215-pound ILB with multiple collegiate offers, agrees with his Blue Devil teammate.
“That could potentially happen,” he said. “It could replace the fall season.”
Warren’s 23 wins over the past two seasons is the most of any team in Lake County, IL. The reason for Blue Devils success is split between rosters filled with college-level talent and a coherent program culture.
Coach Bryan McNulty knows he can’t provide all the resources his ambitious players need to succeed at the highest level.
“BOOM and EFT (Elite Football Training in Highland Park) are outstanding programs that do really good things,” McNulty said. “I know 7-on-7 is valuable.”
But McNulty raises concerns over the demand for 7-on-7 this fall.
“You have a lot of adults who make a lot of money off kids and they sell them a whole bunch of stuff. There’s that element,” he said. “At the same time, every college coach that I talk to, which is hundreds in my career now, tell you that a kid can go wow you at 7 on 7, but if I don’t turn on the film and see something similar in a live setting? They want to see them on the field.”
That’s the rub—there won’t be any game action ‘field’, at least for tackle, until March, if at all. That’s deep into the 2021 recruiting calendar. The NCAA has yet to announce any adjustment to recruiting rules to reflect the shift in football schedules. As this calendar year has shown, any decisions made now could be rendered moot in the days, weeks and months that follow.
Since the formation of the club sports industry, there has been tension between private coaches and their public counterparts. Football is largely absent from that combative dialogue. But not in 2020.
High school football coaches are used to seeing their kids every day from June or July through the end of October and into November. To have that time be siphoned off to private coaches, who many high school coaches believe are allowed to train free of the public health restrictions mandated by their school districts, is a subject of much acrimony.
“We are high school coaches and professional coaches. This is part of what we do. We are professional educators and we are held to a different standard to AAU and clubs,” Deerfield coach Steve Winiecki said. “So you are going to take the people that know the best, have the greatest skill set and handcuff them more. Why wouldn’t someone think about doing something like that?”
Niklos is also varsity assistant football coach at Neuqua Valley in Naperville. He empathizes with high school coaches and sees the inconsistencies.
“I see the different atmospheres and steps that need to be taken between BOOM and Neuqua Valley. The (high) schools are more cautious with everything. Our lineman have to take six-feet splits because they can’t be near each other,” Niklos said.
And while he is frustrated by the postponement of fall tackle football, the coach and mentor in him propels forward.
Young kids need to stay active. Football players need exposure to the game. Business owners need to make adjustments on the fly. That’s just what he plans to do for the remaining five months of 2020.
That’s why on Friday nights this late summer and fall, the lights will be on at Nike Park and Commissioner’s Park in Naperville. Dozens of young football players between the ages of 8-18 will take the field in front of family and friends, eager to get better in a sport impossible to shake.
“I don’t think people realize how important sports is to these kids. It’s so much of their identity. We just want to provide a platform for them,” Niklos said.