El Paso-Gridley’s Benedict wins 2025 CSM Football Coach of the Year

Few things can capture the attention, support and hearts of a small town more than its high school football team. 

In some ways, El Paso-Gridley wasn’t exactly similar to a high school football team in the movies. The Titans weren’t a full-on rags to riches story and had been successful with eight playoff berths in its past 10 full seasons. 

However, 2025 saw the Titans reach new heights with an undefeated regular season, winning its first playoff game since 2017  — and second since El Paso and Gridley’s high schools consolidated in 2004 — and making an unforgettable run to the Class 2A state semifinals before falling to eventual state champion Wilmington. 

All of it happened with a young core as well over half of El Paso-Gridley’s starters were sophomores and juniors. It happened with the youngest head coach in the area as well, Tanner Benedict, who is Clutch Sports Media’s 2025 Football Coach of the Year. 

Benedict led the Titans to a 12-1 record, winning the perennially-competitive Heart of Central Illinois Conference and beating area powers such as Tri-Valley, Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley and Dee-Mack. The 12 wins were the most since El Paso High School went 13-1 en route to a Class 1A second-place trophy in 2002. 

The Titans used a wide variety of playmakers in a fast-paced offense that averaged 36.8 points per game and played strongly as a unit on defense, holding 10 opponents to 15 points or less and recording four shutouts. Benedict helped lead EPG to playoff wins over Sterling Newman Catholic (31-0), Chicago Marshall (43-20) and Farmington (32-15) in the Class 2A playoffs. 

His team was well-represented on CSM’s 2025 Football All-Area Team with linebackers Nolan Whitman and Braden Gibson, quarterback Owen Adams, linemen Caden Castleman and Harlin Toillion, kicker Owen Bergquist, and wide receivers/defensive backs Cha’von Maxon and Jayvion Maxon among the honorees. 

Hear more from Benedict about this past season and his career in our interview with him below. Some responses have been minimally edited for clarity.

What have you been able to reflect on in the days since the season has ended? 

“There's a lot of good stuff that went on, I’m just proud of the kids effort buying that they had from the very beginning, I think, as I reflect back on our time this year and as I kind of read back through some things, the one thing that stands out to me more so now is just our ability to take the ball away and not only to take the ball away, but then to capitalize the way we did. I thought our defense did a phenomenal job.”

“We did a great job of just getting the ball out, whether that was interceptions or fumble recoveries. Then when you switch over to offense and our ability to go fast this year, we wanted to make that a point of emphasis. And if you look back at our scores and see our stats, it's a big reason why we put up the numbers we did.”

You had the best season in program history with a lot of sophomores and juniors playing. What allowed you to succeed despite not being overly senior-heavy?

“The group we had this year really loved football and that sounds kind of maybe weird to say or weird to hear, but when your kids love doing what they do, it makes everybody else around and ramp it up a notch and be better. We've tried to create that environment where practice is one of the better parts, if not the best part, of their day hopefully. That doesn't mean there's days we walk off the field and aren't frustrated and need to be better. But overall, when you stack a lot of good days together and play the way you do on Friday night, like the guys did all year, I think it's just a tribute to their effort and their focus. I think their ability to really buy in and enjoy doing what we were asking them to do is where it all starts with their success this year.”

What’s your playing and coaching background? 

“ I don't have a ton of years [of] experience playing the game. I played two years of JFL growing up. If kids want to play JFL, that's great, but I always say if they haven't played JFL by the time they get into high school, that's okay, too. So it started there with me two years doing that. I played all four years in high school, and that was really when I fell in love with football. I was always kind of a baseball kid growing up and then I think the Friday Night Lights feel and obviously some success junior and senior year really made for a good experience for me. I had some really good coaches along the way that I felt like impacted me as well.

“I graduated in 2016 from EPG and the first coaching job I had was eighth grade boys basketball coach so I had a great experience there. That's really where I felt like I learned the difference between what I thought a coach should do versus being thrown into what a coach actually has to do. So I had a really good, unique opportunity at 19 years old to be coaching basketball, I guess then maybe I was 18, even. But I did that for three years before I became the JV head football coach, and that was because ultimately, we didn't have a lot of help here at the high school when our head coach was here at the time. I definitely was not qualified to be the head JV coach, but I just kind of happened to be the guy. “I finished out two more years of junior high basketball so I had five total in junior high basketball. The last two of those five I was the JV football coach and then the head coach at the time took a new job when I was just graduating from [Illinois State]. I had actually taken a job at Lexington and was going to go teach there. Well, that summer, the football coach and a PE position became open at EPG and I applied for it and got the job and was very fortunate that Lexington was understanding of that. I never ended up teaching there or coaching there. But I went straight into being the head football coach and I was 23 at the time. I was very fortunate to be surrounded by staff that I definitely knew that I wanted these guys to be a part of it with me. I knew that I needed their mentorship, and I needed their just stability within the program, their ideas, their experience, all that came with them. I found a good core group of about nine other guys and just about all of them have been with me these past five years, and we've added a couple on the way too. So it's been a great five years. I’ve been fortunate to get some notification or some awards this year but it's really been a group effort. Everything that I've accomplished as a coach within the football program, it's because of the staff that so I’m very appreciative of those guys.”

You were honored as a Chicago Bears Coach of the Week and were able to visit one of their practices recently, what was that experience like? 

“It was pretty unique experience. It was, as far as just sports moments that have been a part of in my life [and] not coaching related, it was definitely the best one I've ever had to see an NFL practice with just a small group of people and to be treated really well by the Bears and their ownership. It was pretty unique to go down to the practice field, see a little bit firsthand there, watch them work on some trick plays and then watch closely to see if you know what they're actually going to run in the game or not. I got to meet Coach [Ben] Johnson and Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze. It was a pretty unique experience and something that I hope I will remember forever.”

“Part of the Bears Coach of the Week is they make a $2,000 donation for that school's football program. So the football program received that and I got to go on the field for pregame against the Browns and my wife and I got to do that together, that was really neat. I got two tickets for the game and a couple other coaches found their way up to the game as well too. It was a cold, cold day but overall a really memorable experience.”

Aside from winning, what’s a fun memory with your players that you’ve had from this past season? 

“I think going back to before the season started, we knew, as we self-reflected, kind of where we were lacking a little bit. I think that was just physicality and that started in the weight room. We made an emphasis to try to get in before school in the winter and spring, we met at six in the morning. They did it and that was eye opening because I think that's where you started to see the buy-in, where you started to see them start to jel a little more as a team and as a group.”

“That morphed into a really good summer, we had the best summer attendance we've had in the five years that I've been here. What that does for you is it starts to build relationships. You start to grow closer to the players because they're there more and they see that you're bought in. You see that they're bought in. It elevates everybody's willingness to do whatever it takes to win. It's easier for guys to buy into roles. Before school on some Monday mornings [we watched] film and we would have breakfast together afterwards just to put a little good positive spin on the day. So I guess, the long answer to that question is just this team's ability to come together as a group. I hope our underclassmen notice that, I hope they continue to feed off of that. The best part about it was it came naturally, it wasn't something that was forced. It was just people prioritizing people around them and that was really cool.”

What’s a piece of coaching advice you’d give?

“I heard Bret Bielema from Illinois say this one time talking about the importance of communication and consistency. I think just the more you can communicate to your players, to parents, to your admin, your assistant coaches, the more that you can communicate, whether it's your message, your coaching points or whatever, having good communication skills and being consistent with your everyday approach [is key]. You can't be off the cuffs one day over here and then way over here on the other end the next day, you got to be somewhere kind of in the middle. It's easy to be one way one day and totally the other way the next day because emotions run high, especially in football. I would say just whatever your approach is, whatever you believe in, your identity, all that is to be consistent with it. Know that it doesn't happen overnight. This has been truly brewing for five years and we hope that we can sustain it. Ultimately, at the end of day, we want to build high-character kids who walk out of here and make the program better than they found it.”