provided by Andy Voorheis Photography
Head Coach Nate Fincham is in his 18th year of coaching at Normal West. As he gets set for the 2025 playoffs, he is proud of the number of guys who have stepped up this season.
Going into the 2025 playoffs, Wildcat football is 7-2 for the second year in a row.
The Normal West Wildcats have been the definition of consistent for years, and they aim to keep it that way for years to come.
Head Coach Nate Fincham, was drawn to coaching through playing sports growing up.
He started with junior high baseball as a catcher. From this position, he learned a lot about technique and on-field statistics.
He took those skills into his football career, where he went on to play tight end at Aurora University.
Through this college position, he learned even more in-depth knowledge about the game.
“What drew me to coaching is I was always a ‘player-coach’ on the field or court or whatever…I was a catcher, which you’re kind of like a coach on the field…and then for football, I was a tight end and defense end, so I kind of always knew what everybody was doing,” Fincham noted.
This is his 18th year coaching at Normal West, with 10 years in as a JV Assistant Coach.
His natural coaching abilities is not the only consistent thing about Normal West football this year, though.
“[Some] similarities would be obviously the record…[and the] path that we took to get to where we are at. I don’t feel like the teams are the same, even though we’ve unfortunately had some similar injuries with some people that were a key component to the team.
I think last year they kind of figured it out on defense first, and then it’s kind of flipped this year. We were kind of a little bit stronger on offense, and it took our defense a second the get its footing,” Fincham added.
Aside from similar records, the Wildcats do have some familiar players, players like Maliq Givens-Smith, Cody Muhlbauer, and Efoe Baskins who returned from their time on the varsity team last year.
Fincham notes that these three Wildcats have been outstanding, but he also wanted to shout out his defense for their work this year.
“On the defensive side, some guys that obviously are big parts of our football team right now is Knasir Heard…before he got hurt. He was the leader of that defense. He was always in the right spot. He gets guys lined up.
Marqwell Letcher has been outstanding for us. I think he had like five sacks in a game at one point this year, and so for us, that’s having a guy in the middle of our d-line. A guy that’s difficult to block like that creates a lot of chaos, which is good for our defense,” Fincham noted.
A third similarity to last year’s team are the injuries that have been unfortunately frequent this season…on both sides of the ball.
Seniors Alex Carter (DB), Knasir Heard (DL), Jrue Mangruem (QB), and Briar Leenerman (LB) are a few big names who have suffered impactful injuries.
This is consistent with last season as the Wildcats lost 2025 graduate Keagan Brown and current seniors Briar Leenerman and Jrue Mangruem.
However, even with these big injuries, the 2025 Wildcats have found a way to persevere and fight their way to a 7-2 record on the season. The injuries have simply meant that new Wildcats have to step up.
New players, players like sophomore quarterback Chase Sennett, junior Marqwell Letcher, senior CJ Payton, and senior DJ Morgan, have made a huge difference on the team.
These “new” players have been waiting their turn, and when the opportunity presented itself, they took it and ran.
“We’ve had some senior step up, which is kind of become the norm here at normal west is where guys play JV their junior year to continue develop and then senior year, you get [guys like] Knasir and Josh Edison, Marquell Gibbs… those guys have [also] stepped up for us this year,” Fincham noted.
As the Wildcats reflect on their season, one more similarity is the number of losses they’ve endured at this point in the season.
Last year, the Wildcats suffered two blowout losses.
This year, both losses were fought closely to the end.
The nature of these losses provides confidence to both Coach Fincham and the Wildcats, who are confident and prepared for the IHSA playoffs with their first playoff game on Saturday, Nov. 1 vs. Thornwood at Wildcat Stadium.
Tickets are available online for $7.20 or at the door for $8.