CHAMPAIGN — Driving about 80 miles to and from football practice didn’t bother Chris Ridgeway, Eli Corpus or Lucas Meinders.
The three used that time to make memories while Cerro Gordo/Bement and Arcola formed a cooperative team during the 2025 season, preventing each program’s players from missing a varsity campaign. Even if it presented a rather unusual co-op situation given the distance among the three schools.
“Honestly, if you ask me, it was one of the better parts,” said Ridgeway, the Broncos’ coach. “Some of the better memories I have were (taking) our school bus — and I drove — so I would load these guys up every day, and Bement guys would roll in, and we’d take off. … There would be some people working on homework together, and some people just unwinding after a day of school and blaring music.”
Ridgeway, Corpus and Meinders are happier, though, to put up with the shorter drive between the campuses of Cerro Gordo and Bement now.
That’s all they’ll have to worry about this season, with Arcola once again fielding its own team and the Broncos resuming the arrangement they’ve had since 2012 with one key exception: They will now play 8-man football this season for the first time.
“I think everyone involved did the best they could,” Ridgeway said. “I’m extremely grateful these guys got to not have a gap year in their football career, and everyone involved, I want to thank them for the part we were allowed to have in that.”
The Broncos have had sustained success in their past, accumulating 25 playoff appearances in the program’s history and reaching the Class 1A state semifinals in 2003. But they’ve fallen on hard times recently, last making the playoffs in 2018 and last posting a winning season in 2013 while numbers dwindled in the program.
Ridgeway and his staff have been using every resource available to prepare the Broncos ahead of their season opener on Aug. 20 against Oblong, as Cerro Gordo/Bement is now one of 35 high schools playing 8-man football in Illinois.
“I immediately dove into YouTube, and for our local area, there’s a good presence online of games to watch, and it’s football,” Ridgeway said. “Everyone around here wants to run the ball, which is something I love to do.
“It’s just football with a smaller field and a couple less guys, so we’re still doing a lot of the stuff that we’ve always done since these guys were in JFL.”
The Broncos have also had to acclimate to other changes this offseason, including the I8FA season shifting a week earlier to match similar changes to the IHSA calendar.
“When you’ve got only 40 boys total that are in multiple sports, it’s hard to get them to do double-duty,” Ridgeway said. “We kind of took an approach this year of letting the kids have June for basketball, and then July for football, which is new to me.
“I’ll be honest. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed having June for just lifting, and that was it.”
Making the Broncos’ return to having another football team in Piatt County besides Monticello a success will fall on the shoulders of Corpus at quarterback and Meinders at running back.
Corpus will be one of the team’s lone players to focus on one position, with Corpus set to play quarterback. The Broncos have had about 20 players during their summer program, according to Ridgeway.
“It’s still just football, and there’s really nothing that I can say that’s bad about it,” Corpus said. “I’m very excited to see what we can do.”
Meinders, who will be counted on at running back, hasn’t had a problem rolling with the changes this summer.
“I like playing football no matter (if it is) 8-man, 11-man, seven-on-seven,” Meinders said. “Whatever we’re playing, it’s football.”
Stylistically, Ridgeway isn’t expecting the Broncos to look much different than they did the last time they suited up for an 11-man varsity game in 2024.
“It was more of just drawing what we do with the numbers that we have to work with,” Ridgeway said. “I find that to be exciting, just the dimension difference, and I think it plays well with what we’ve always tried to do.”
Ridgeway graduated from Cerro Gordo in 2001 and recalls the rivalry with South Piatt, a cooperative between Bement and Atwood-Hammond that lasted until 2011.
Plenty of strong relationships have been formed under the arrangement that has been in place for the last 14 years between Cerro Gordo and Bement. Corpus is excited to build upon them during his final season of high school football.
“Most of my other friends are in Bement,” Corpus said. “Most people that I hang out with are in Bement. It gives us an opportunity to play more sports that we wouldn’t if we didn’t have that.”
Joey Wright is a reporter covering prep and college sports for The News-Gazette and WDWS/WHMS/WKIO radio.
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