The football fields at Mendota, St. Bede, Hall, LaSalle-Peru, and Amboy are all going to be in the same locations as previous seasons.

They will still be 100 yards from end zone to end zone with an additional 10 yards called paydirt.

The bleachers will still be steel, hard, warm in August and September, and cold in October and November.

However, there will be one huge difference with the first four programs, a different head coach, while the fifth has a huge question to answer, "Can you do it a third straight year?"

The Trojans will no longer have Keegan Hill after seven seasons and Logan Larson left the Red Devils’ sideline after one campaign. Jim Eustice and Jose Medina were assistants with their respected programs before taking over the reins -- Eustice with the Bruins and Medina with the Cavaliers -- in 2015. Both will be replaced before the 2025 Illinois high school football season begins.

For a lot of players, player’s parents, assistant coaches, administrators, fans, and local journalists there are a lot of different emotions. Unfortunately, there is the good riddance or why didn’t the change happen before because he didn’t win enough or make enough playoff appearances.

There is the, man, he will be missed because he was a great coach, was great for the kids, his energy and excitement for the game will not be matched, he knew who to manage a game, he was an amazing ambassador for the program and the community.

Then there is the curiosity of the great unknown.

Who will be next?

Is the school going to hire within? Is the school going to bring back a previous coach? Is the program going to look for a replacement in the Illinois Valley? Is the next head coach going to be from Illinois or another state?

After the hire, more questions are asked.

Have we ever heard of this person before? What is their pedigree? Are they head coach worthy? Did they get the job because they knew someone on the school board or did they get the job because of their resume?

These are all asked immediately throughout the process in every newsroom (well, those don’t exist everywhere anymore) so through texts from one journalist to another. Or at the cafeteria, the teacher’s lounge, the walkie talkie from one forklift to another, and at the YMCA swimming pool during water aerobics.

And, obviously, in this column.

Mendota has already answered some of the questions traveling its way as it hired Eustice in an undetected, under-the-radar, unthinkable acquisition. Read more about Eustice becoming a Trojan in this very edition of The Mendota Reporter.

The other programs still have all of the questions to answer as rumblings and rumors have been created, but no answers or a name have filled the blank.

Will Hill or Medina switch to one of the remaining open jobs? Larson is traveling south on Rt. 39 to return to his stomping grounds to coach, so we know we won’t see him in the Illinois Valley in 2025.

With the maneuvering and the change, no matter who it is, the final result or the grand question will always be, is the football team better than it was before with the new hire.

No offense to Hill, but Mendota will be in terms of Eustice being a proven coach who has advanced to the playoffs many times with rosters people didn’t think SBA could be successful with. Plus, he has coached in the Three Rivers Conference in all but two seasons of his coaching career as the Bruins were a league anchor before moving to the Chicagoland Prairie Conference.

Hall has numerous seniors in the 2025 season who have been key cogs to the Red Devil operation for the last two years. Will the new coach push them to finish better than 2024’s 2-7 record?

St. Bede was also 2-7 last year, but the Chicagoland Prairie has its own shakeups as Tom Jobst retired from Marquette, Dwight is losing a great class of seniors, and Seneca is dropping some of its bulk which helped them finish 2024 with a 9-2 mark, a state ranking, and a playoff appearance.

Every L-P fan has their fingers crossed Marion Persich will return to the Cavaliers instead of transferring to another school after wowing the bleachers with his inspiring play as a freshman. There are some nice pieces coming back to aid the star quarterback.

Each program has a different set of questions, concerns, and requirements, but for those watching, waiting, and paying 100 percent attention, the 2025 football season in the Illinois Valley is going to be interesting to say the least.

I mean, I’m writing about it, two months after the 2024 state championship games were played.

And I’m saving the best for last.

The Amboy-LaMoille-Ohio football team is coming off back-to-back Illinois 8-Man Football Association state championships. A huge accomplishment the players, the coaches, the school, the community, and sports writers will never forget.

This of course brings up the monster question, can the Clippers do it again?

They were already questioned this past season because top tier players graduated after the first championship. Answering the haters, yes, yes, they could do it again. Now the same question and others are going to be asked more often, from more people, and probably a little bit louder.

Unlike the other programs discussed earlier, the Clippers will have Scott Payne as the head coach once again along with his assistant coaches. They didn’t forget how to coach and have developed a program, a team, a family, every boy in Amboy wants to be part of.

It is incredibly hard to win a state championship and no program should justify success on whether they win one or not, including Amboy.

However, it’s going to be a blast as the Clippers once again prove haters wrong with every tally they put in the win column.