The corn belt conference is going to unleash a fury of teams into the 2007 football season. As usual, Mahomet-Seymour, Prairie Central, Pontiac, and BCC will be up at the front while the rest of the conference is looking to knock one of them off to make it into this years playoff hunt.
Since I am from Mahomet, I can go into more detail about their 2007 football team. Mahomet is returning every offensive lineman except for their all-conference center and second team guard. We while it is going to be tough to replace them, there is an up and coming junior by the name of Ochs, who is going to be a nice addition to the o-line. Mahomet will have a tough o-line, and they will open holes this year, it is just a matter of the coaches utilizing what they have. The one weakness on this years team, is the passing game. There will be vast improvement at QB this year, the only hole in the offense is at WR. You can have the best QB in the world, but if he doesn't have anyone to throw to than it won't matter how skilled he is.
I believe the conference will unfold like this: 1.Mahomet-Seymour 2.Pontiac 3.Prairie Central 4.BCC 5.Rochester 6.U-High 7.Rantoul 8.Olympia 9.Eureka
Mahomet does have to go to PC, BCC and Rochester. If they can go 2-1 or better, than Mahomet will be in position to return back to Corn Belt Conference Champions. It is time, Mahomet's track team has been cleaning up, now its time for football to return back to dominance.
Mahomet sounds like a serious contender this year. It's still a little early for me to call a preferred winner, but if history plays out I see no reason why the tight race between PC, BCC, Pontiac & M-S you're predicting wouldn't play out.
Pontiac's long time head coach Mic Peterson has been replaced by asst. David Young, but Young has a good track record already, as he took the helm back in 2002, bringing Pontiac to the 5A State finals, when Peterson was suspended because of recruitment violations.
As always the Corn Belt will be one of the conferences we keep a close eye on.
Also, I'd like to give props out to Pontiac (Morris) & Rantoul (Mt. Carmel) for scheduling a tough opponent for their lone non-conference game. Nothing against the rest of the teams, there's only so many opponents to choose from.
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Vincent Johnson/Editor-in-Chief
www.IHSFW.com
Somebody has to cover the entire state.
