By Dave Kane
It was about a year ago when North Mac High School got off to a disappointing start to the football season. COVID problems led to the Panthers being outmanned in a week one loss to Riverton, followed by an outright forfeit loss to Maroa-Forsyth in week two.
The Panthers eventually regrouped and finished 5-5 overall, losing a wild week nine game at Athens and falling to Bismarck-Henning in round one of the Class 3A playoffs.
One season later, many of the Panthers are ready for a season marked by a return to normalcy — except for opponents on the other side of the line of scrimmage.
After a decade of being the southernmost members of the Sangamo Conference, they’ve become the northernmost members of the South Central. North Mac will open 2022 against one of the SCC’s traditional powers, Carlinville, on Friday in Virden.
In his fifth year as North Mac head coach, Patrick Bowman admits facing an entirely new schedule will be a challenge. But he said the Panthers are enjoying what feels like a normal start to the season.
“You hear (the players) talk about missing the Sangamo once in a while,” Bowman said. “But they’re happy to just be able to play without the COVID mess.”
“Yes, they’ll miss the rivals they had before. But it is what it is. They’re just happy to have a nine-game schedule. We don’t think there’ll be much of a difference; the Sangamo and South Central have been pretty evenly matched in the playoffs.”
“We hope we fit in.”
It’s definitely a geographical fit, with “Mac” standing for Macoupin County. The Virden-Girard consolidation gives the SCC its fifth Macoupin member along with Carlinville, Gillespie, Staunton and Piasa Southwestern.
And one of North Mac’s communities, Virden, has a history with the South Central. The Bulldogs were SCC members from 1966-85, when they left to join the new Prairie State Conference.
North Mac’s other conference opponents will include Pana (11-1 last season), Vandalia (8-3), Greenville (5-5) and Southwestern (5-5). Patrick Bowman’s brother, Kevin, is a former head coach at Southwestern and now is that district’s superintendent.
“It’ll be different, for sure,” Bowman said. “They’re teams we haven’t played or prepared for before, but there’s also a little excitement.”
“Week one against Carlinville will definitely be fun. We know they’ll be prepared; with the staff they’ve had for a long time under (head coach Chad) Easterday.”
Carlinville held off North Mac 27-21 in a memorable Class 3A semifinal in 2016 at Virden. More recently, the Panthers fell to then-unbeaten Vandalia 7-0 in a first-round 3A game in 2019.
The Panthers still played on grass in 2016 and ’19. They, along with Carlinville and Greenville, now give the SCC three fields with artificial turf.”
The Sangamo, which brings in Stanford Olympia to replace North Mac, also has three turf fields with Maroa-Forsyth, Williamsville and Riverton.
The Panthers will throw a senior-dominated lineup at South Central opponents. Bowman said he has about 18 seniors on the roster — the most he’s had in his tenure at North Mac.
They include quarterback Kaden Brown and offensive tackle Cooper Starks, who’s already committed to Vanderbilt University of the Southeastern Conference.
Starks said the Panthers grew through the tough times they experienced last year, and it should prepare them for new challenges in a new conference.
“I think it made game days that much more exciting, when we were able to come back as a full group,” Starks said earlier this summer. “When we finally got to play at full strength, we’d learned from each other.”
“There’s nothing like playing next to the guys you’ve known forever. The group I’m with, the seniors, whether we were from Girard or Virden, we’ve all played together since fifth grade.”
As for bidding the Sangamo farewell, Starks admitted to having some mixed feelings, but he thinks the team will embrace the new experience.
North Mac’s move to the SCC means the end — for now — of the Route 4 regular-season rivalry between Auburn and Virden and/or North Mac. The only other discontinuation was in 2009 and 2010, when 2009 Virden and 2010 North Mac remained in the Prairie State while Auburn joined the new Sangamo.
“I’ll miss playing the Williamsvilles and the Auburns,” Starks said. “Teams like that have been our rivals for a long time. There was no feeling like playing those games.”
“But it’s also fun to experience something new. You go and play someone North Mac hasn’t played, like Gillespie or someone, you don’t know who’s good on those teams until you’ve really played them.”
“It’s kind of fun. I think it’ll make us play harder.”
