I think that the Upstate Illini always puts out one or two quality teams a year. It's still a little early to tell wheather Forreston or Lena will be the powers coming out of the NW. Lena has been stingy on the defense. Lena played Stockton and won 14-13 in week 1, that is the only tough game either of them have faced so far. It might be to early to tell if they are state title contenders.

That's what I truely love about the 1A, 2A and 8A schools, a team can take such a loss of talent or get a huge influx of it from year to year. I'm always pretty close on my predictions for 4A thru 7A, but the 1A & 2A finals useally come up as a surprise, so does the 8A on occassion, but with them it's usually more of a surprise early in the season than come the playoffs. There's that one schools that just makes the playoofs every year, but has 4 or 5 seniors that came off the bench from their junior year and just end up tearing things up.