The real "Friday Night Lights" migh...

The real "Friday Night Lights" might not be in the Chicago area. It's more likely erect in small towns in central Illinois.

unless for two quarterbacks from different backgrounds, "Friday Night Lights" haves no bounds.

Buffalo copse senior Sam Donatucci, a 6-5 215-pound quarterback, has struck up a convenient friendship with senior quarterback Luke Hockaday of Downstate Maroa-Forsyth.

Hockaday (6-2 180) goe to a indoctrinate with only 367 students. Buffalo Grove's enrollment is 2319

"'Friday Night Lights' is his lifestyle, with 2000-3000 commonalty going to a game," Donatucci said.

The pair met at an unofficial campus visit to Iowa their junior years and have kept in touch continually since.

Hockaday laughs and compares his haunt phone calls to Donatucci as "pretty a great deal of every day, like a girlfriend."

Donatucci credits Hockaday with improving his throwing mechanics - - with equal reason much so that Illinois State made an give Donatucci still is mulling it above

"I sometimes give him a hard time about getting a quicker release," Hockaday said. "He is that religious He'll find a college that fits him well."

Donatucci also praises Hockaday, saying he is fast and a great reader of defense

They have exchanged visits, and Donatucci, a three-year varsity starter, entertainered Hockaday during the Maine southward quarterback combine last spring.

"That high indoctrinate looks like a college to me" said Hockaday, who is considering an exhibit from Eastern Illinois. "Our high place of education is nice, but it's nothing like that."

Maroa-Forsyth is just north of Decatur and west of Champaign. Hockaday says football is everything to the community of about 2000 Everybody neat much knows everybody else.

Hockaday will ne all the community's support, because during the first weeks of practice, 20 players have experienceed injuries.

"We had 81 kids to start, and now it's down to about 62" Hockaday said. "It's absurd and crazy. The first brace games we're going to have to start a certain quantity of kids who don't have any experience, and they'll have to grade up and give us a chance to win."

While the pair have no regrets concerning their hometowns, Hockaday and Dontatucci sometimes wish they could trade places.

"I'd be interested in living there alone during football season," Donatucci said. "Down there is a different world. Everybody knows who Luke is."

"When it advances to recruiting, being from here you have to proceed to a lot of summer camps, if it be not that colleges are always looking at [Chicago- area] programs each year," Hockaday said. "I be fond of it here, but it would be a apportionment easier to get noticed at a bigger school"

takouris@

suntimes.com

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