Back of the Yards has its own little football stadium tucked in between the back of the school and the train tracks. It’s a popular setup in Chicago these days, several newer Public League schools have their own stadiums and Mount Carmel found a way to squeeze one on campus as well.
What Back of the Yards doesn’t have is lights. And it may have cost the Bobcats a victory on Thursday.
Back of the Yards had first and goal on the Julian 1, trailing 20-14 when the game was called due to darkness after three quarters.
“The officials said they will send it downtown to sports administration and they will make a call,” Bobcats coach Mark Morgan said. “It might not be over.”
Julian was aggressively blitzing and called offside on the last two plays of the game, moving the ball from the 4 to the 2 and then the 1.
“That’s my problem with it,” Morgan said. “Why didn’t they give us a warning? We would have tried to score at the end of third.”
The game was scheduled to start at 4:15 p.m. but didn’t get underway until 5:16 p.m. There were two long delays for injured players. The game was called at 7:20 p.m. At that point the jersey numbers of the players could still be made out, but by 7:30 it was far too dark to play safely.
“[Back of the Yards] is going to try and overturn it,” Julian coach Clifton Cooper said. “I don’t know what they will do considering the division we are in.”
Back of the Yards (1-2) plays in the Blue-Central and Julian is in the Blue-South. Neither conference is eligible for the state playoffs.
It’s rare for any Public League 3:30 or 4:15 games to start on time. Busing schedule difficulties and Chicago traffic makes it difficult.
“We had the bus scheduled to get to the school around 2 p.m. and something went on with the bus company so they didn’t pick us up until 4:20 p.m.,” Cooper said.
Last week’s 3:30 game at Rockne, North Lawndale vs. Rauner, didn’t start until 5:30 due to bus issues. Rockne has lights but the entire game was played with a running clock because another game was scheduled at the stadium later that night.
Freshman Yatkie King was the star for the Jaguars. He scored on an 80-yard kickoff return with 11:39 left in the third quarter. That tied the game at 14. Then he ripped off a 25-yard TD run to give Julian the lead with 7:30 left in the third quarter.
“He had some big moments last week also,” Cooper said. “He’s very explosive. We knew what he could do but we’ve tried to be patient with him.”
Julian (2-0) only had six players on the team over the summer and didn’t have enough players to field a team in Week 1. They are up to nearly 30 players now.
“Getting kids to constantly come out is difficult with work schedules and summer school,” Cooper said. “But we’ve made a lot of strides since then.”
Junior Marko Franco had 23 carries for 99 yards for Back of the Yards. He scored two touchdowns in the second quarter.
The Bobcats have been rebuilding since sitting out the COVID-19 spring season. Morgan’s program has steadily improved, with one win in 2021, two wins in 2022 and five wins last season.
“I’ve been proud of the kids,” Morgan said. “We have more work to do.”