Billig could be the ticket

JOLIET -- Earlier this decade, Lockport High School was king of the Class 8A football world.

The Porters won state championships in 2002 with Steve Walker at quarterback and in 2003 with Jake Christensen at the controls.

The following year, Christensen returned and Lockport enjoyed a 9-0 regular season. But a 14-6 loss to Lincoln-Way East in Round 1 of the playoffs ended the Porters' dreams of a third straight title.

Since then, Lockport has posted a 16-21 overall record and has played in one playoff game. The breakdown: 3-6 in 2005, 5-5 in 2006 including a 37-3 opening-round playoff loss to Naperville North, and 4-5 each of the last two seasons, thus missing the playoffs by one victory.

Last season, the Porters started 3-1 but lost to Sandburg, Lincoln-Way East, Lincoln-Way Central and Bolingbrook over the final five weeks.

No slouches in that group. Yet, that is the type of challenge the Porters know they will face year after year.

"Things are about the same for us," veteran Lockport coach Bret Kooi said during last Saturday's University of St. Francis 7-on-7 football passing camp at Pershing Grade School. "The schedule this year is extremely tough, especially early. So we need to get out of the gates."

The Porters open against Downers Grove North, a quarterfinalist in 7A a year ago, then take on traditional power Richards before opening Southwest Suburban Blue play against Lincoln-Way East and Bolingbrook.

"No doubt we will have our hands full early," Kooi said. "Downers Grove North is tough to start with because they have the momentum from their finish last year, and Richards has quite a tradition. Then East and Bolingbrook ..."

So, how do the Porters go about attacking that schedule? For starters, they feature a returning quarterback in senior Kyle Billig, who started all last season.

Billig, also a shortstop on the Lockport baseball team, completed 76-of-171 passes as a junior, 44.4 percent, for 797 yards and 4 touchdowns. He also finished as the team's second-leading rusher behind graduated tailback Ryan O'Donnell with 148 net yards.

"We are expecting big things from Kyle," Kooi said. "He got a lot of experience under fire last year.

"We also have a handful of offensive linemen back who played quite a bit, and we have some running backs and receivers who saw some time. We kind of share the experience we have."

"I'm definitely feeling more comfortable now," Billig said. "I've had a whole year to work on our offense and feel comfortable with it. That's the big thing, to feel comfortable with what I'm doing."

Billig said the Porters will be injecting "a new formation, a split-back formation," into their offensive scheme, but he does not anticipate changing the run-pass mix significantly. "I think we will mix the pass and run similar to how we did it last year," he said.

After Billig had time to reflect on Year 1 as the varsity quarterback, his assessment went this way: "I could have done better, but I was happy considering it was my junior year."

This year, the bar is set higher.

"The big thing is that we make the playoffs, and I actually want to go somewhere once we get there," he said. "Just getting into the playoffs isn't going to be good enough.

"I know the first four games will be tough right off the bat, but we have to be ready for them. That's what we're doing at things like this (7-on-7). We're tuning up and perfecting the offense now to make sure we are ready for the season."

Brendan Murphy was Billig's No. 1 receiver a year ago, catching 36 passes for 443 yards. This time around, Billig said Mike Denton, Mike Hir and Joe Tholl will be primary targets. "They're all good receivers," he said.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Porters are hoping for quick development of younger talent.

"We're a little younger on the defensive side," Kooi said. "We have a linebacker back and some guys who have experience in the D-line even if they weren't starters because in our system we rotate a lot of people into the line. But we are young in the secondary."

The challenge of a rugged schedule remains. As Kooi said, "Things are about the same for us."