‘We got lucky’: Pittsfield, Jacksonville to lock horns in Week One after both teams’ opponents cancel

PITTSFIELD, Ill. — Sometimes when it feels like all hope is lost, the stars align perfectly.

The Pittsfield and Jacksonville football teams can thank their lucky stars having found a Week One game after both schools’ originally scheduled opponents announced they weren’t going to play.

“I wasn’t too sure we’d find a game,” Pittsfield coach and athletic director Zach Ferguson said. “It just worked out for both of us.”

The Saukees will host the Crimsons at 7 p.m. Aug. 30.

“We got lucky,” Ferguson said.

On July 8, Riverton announced it will not field a varsity football team for the upcoming season, rendering Pittsfield without an opponent for its season-opening game.

“I looked at Missouri, I looked at southeast Iowa, I contacted schools around the Chicago area,” Ferguson said.

With most teams having their schedules set a year or more in advance, finding a game in a matter of weeks seemed nearly impossible.

“Trying to find open schools in Missouri and Iowa is difficult because they play a district schedule, so their district games are pre-determined. Plus, their non-district games are determined pretty early,” Ferguson said. “You pretty much have your schedule for the following year done by the first of the year, so you’re typically not looking for games.”

Jacksonville was put into scramble mode as well but with much less time to try to find an opponent. Jacksonville coach Mark Grounds said the reasons behind Jacksonville’s scheduled foe — Soldan out of St. Louis — not playing week one are unclear.

“We got an email last Thursday afternoon that they won’t be playing week one,” Grounds said. “That put us in a real tizzy.

“We contacted (IHSA Assistant Executive Director) Sam Knox to find out if that would be a ‘forfeit,’ ‘did not play,’ was anyone else in that situation? He said at this stage of the game it would have been a forfeit victory for us if we wanted to take it, but you only get so many guaranteed games in football, so you want to do everything you can for all your kids. 

“Knox said there were three teams in the entire state of Illinois that didn’t have games week one, and one of them was Pittsfield.”

A phone call from Grounds to Ferguson and the ensuing conversations led to an improbable matchup.

“Pittsfield is helping Jacksonville out, and Jacksonville is helping Pittsfield out,” Grounds said. “It’s going to be great to have a game on the first Friday of the season like everybody else.”

Even crazier, the schools are only about 30 miles apart.

“In our group chat with the coaches in our conference, none of us were really having much luck even finding people who were open let alone who we were going to be able to play. It just kind of came out of nowhere,” Ferguson said. “To be 30 minutes away from them, that’s going to bring a big crowd from their school. It’s surprising how things work out sometimes.”

Jacksonville was slated to play Soldan on the road at noon Aug. 31. This game taking place in the middle of a Saturday during the sweltering St. Louis summer likely would have resulted in a sparse Jacksonville crowd, but with the new game on a Friday night a half hour away, that’s a much different story.

“It should be a great atmosphere,” Grounds said. “That’s what you want when you start a season, right?”

A great and unexpected atmosphere for which Grounds cannot wait.

“We look forward to the competition,” Grounds said. “They’re a big physical team that played their best football down the stretch last year. We’re going to be a relatively young team trying to find our identity. It’s going to be a typical week one game with teams that are both undefeated and are going to go out there, play four quarters and give it their all. It should be a great experience for us.”

Both coaches can rest a little easier now.

“We’re just happy we found somebody,” Ferguson said. “We’re looking forward to competing with a bigger school and a class act head coach.”