It has been a grueling ten years for Rams football fans. Through all the ups and downs, the 2021 Rams made it to the postseason for the first time in 10 years. A unique style of coaching and well developed players pushed the Rams to the second round of the IHSA playoffs.

Head coach Michael Maloney took over in the spring of 2019, and got right to work addressing areas where the team could improve. The Rams have moved forward from missing the postseason in 2019 to securing an 8-3 record in 2021. The amount of hard work and passion has not gone unnoticed.

“There was a tremendous amount of room for growth in the areas of organization, communication, and skill development,” said Maloney. The Rams football program has seen nothing but improvement since. Maloney added that coachable and developable players, such as Darryl Overstreet, played a tremendous role in the Rams’ playoff run. 

“We always had the vision that Darryl [Overstreet] was gonna be the long term answer and solution for a lot of things. Anytime you have a quarterback that you can work with for three years and develop and grow with, I think your program benefits from that,” said Maloney.

However, pushing the team to a playoff run was not a one-man job; Quarterback Darryl Overstreet described that playoff feeling.

“Honestly, both playoff games felt like a normal game,” said Overstreet.

Despite the game day feelings, they were not just normal games. It was a win or go home situation and surprisingly, “there was no added pressure”. 

“We knew if we lost we would just go home but there was no added pressure from the coaches or ourselves,” said Overstreet. 

Overstreet also opened up about how he believed that coaching changed the culture of the Rams football program. The team was lacking trust and effort. 

Overstreet said, “I feel like the change in coaching helped the teams confidence completely because a lot of guys, my Sophomore year, the Seniors that were here didn’t really trust the previous regime, but once Maloney came, everyone started buying in, and that’s when the culture really changed.”