After going through a bumpy regular season, the 2024 Caravan football team did what no other football team has done at MC: win a state championship with three losses. Despite facing much adversity, this team will be etched in the record books on both sides of the ball, now having the most state championships of any program in Illinois. 

The Caravan played Batavia in the state championship at Illinois State University on November 30th, winning 55-34 and beating the Bulldogs in the postseason for the fourth year in a row. This came after losses to Hun Academy, Brother Rice, and Loyola in the regular season. There was much uncertainty about the team from the outside, but the players and coaches proved to everyone what MC football is all about. 

A legendary quarterback in Jack Elliott and dominant receiving core with underclassmen proved to be one of the most explosive offenses ever. Passionate seniors Le’Javier Payne and Matt Mucha led the defense through the finish line as the team claimed their 16th state title. 

This may have been the youngest team ever for MC football.

“We came into this season with 16 new starters,” head football coach Jordan Lynch ’09 said.  “From years past, we can pick up where we left off. This year we couldn’t really do it, so we kind of had to go back to the fundamentals, the basics.”

They even had a couple of freshmen starting.

“Never before in Mount Carmel history has a freshman ever played varsity [in the regular season],” Lynch said. “We’re going into the year starting one freshman [defensive lineman Caleb Tucker]. Then, come week six, we start another freshman [wide receiver Marshawn Thornton].”

Tucker at 6’4”, 330 lbs. forced double-teams almost every snap. On the other side of the ball, Thornton averaged 23.8 yards per reception, an MC single-season record. 

As the season progressed, the offense proved to be one of the best in the state. Much of this can be credited to their leader and senior quarterback.

Elliott, a Vanderbilt commit, recorded 6,692 passing yards, 76 passing touchdowns, and 26 rushing touchdowns over his career, being at the top of the leaderboard for almost every passing record there is at the school. His continued success this season was a result of his hard work in the offseason.

“I was really confident coming into this year,” Elliott said. “I would come in here everyday at 5 AM to watch film for an hour, and [Coach Budmayr and I] would talk about the schematic of our whole entire offense. Then from 6-7:30, I was throwing with our receivers, working on my mechanics.”

While he was not focused on breaking the records, he has always been focused on his goals that helped him get there.

“When I applied for a scholarship here, I had to write an essay,” he said. “I said that my goal here is to play wherever I want to, which I’m doing, hold all the passing records, which I did, and then win three state championships, which I did.”

Elliott’s historic season could not have been accomplished without his loaded receiving core. Leading Thornton as he adjusted were senior Cooper Lehman and sophomore Quentin Burrell. Burrell recorded 1,257 receiving yards (MC single-season record) with 17 touchdowns (second-most for single-season). He found out very quickly that he would be a key player for the offense.

“I’m an underclassman, but I still play a big card,” Burrell said. “I took it game by game at the start until I was like I could actually do this and go beyond what I thought I could.”

As the season progressed, many were uncertain about the performance of the team. The losses to Hun, Rice, and Loyola put pressure on the seniors.

“I took a lot of accountability for that,” senior linebacker Matt Mucha said. “We didn’t get our guys in the right spots and didn’t get our guys prepared for the occasion. So that was about taking everything that happened in and just going forward with it, correcting things.”

However, they felt just as comfortable going forward with their leadership. 

“The way I responded was just by telling my teammates that we got it,” said Payne, a senior safety headed to Eastern Illinois University.  “I just feel like we’re the best team in 7A, so even though we had three losses, it was against good opponents. When we get to the playoffs, we know what to lock in on and what we’re supposed to do to go win the state championship.”

Payne did just that for a championship run, returning fully healthy for the playoffs after having some injuries early in the season. He is honored to be a part of this historic season.

“As a 6-3 team, everybody wouldn’t have thought that we were going to win state and be the first 6-3 team to win state at Mount Carmel,” he said. “We’re the first team to win 16 state championships, so it’s a big blessing.”

Payne has cemented himself in the history books for MC defense, racking up 12 interceptions in his career to be second all-time at MC, and 20 pass break-ups, easily clearing the school record. 

Looking back at this year’s team, most people can agree that these players were some of the best in the program’s history. Winning three consecutive state championships and rolling over teams left and right, it is guys like Mucha who really epitomized what it means to be on this team. As his high school career is now over, he stands at seventh place all-time for tackles with 214, just six tackles behind his friend Parker Startz ‘24.

“Just looking at those names [in the record books], it is so cool because you know how awesome these guys were,” he said. “Then to see my name, even if it is in seventh, is pretty awesome, especially next to my guy Parker.”

Despite his dominant career, he was not initially a big recruit.

“Even playing freshman football, I didn’t know I was going to start as linebacker,” he said, “but that was all accumulation of the hard work and days we stacked in the weight room with all the guys around me. I’m lucky to have those guys around me and be a part of the 16th state championship team.”

Now looking back, the team could not have done it without the men of Carmel who came before them. 

“[This] was kind of a love letter to all those older teams,” Mucha said. “[They] put in the work, got this started, and kept this afloat. Now it’s our turn, and we’re giving back to [them]. Because [they] laid the groundwork, we got 16.”