Some football coaches would look at an 87-mile drive to get to an opening-round playoff game and cringe.

Not Mooseheart coach Gary Urwiler. The Red Ramblers have done plenty of rambling this fall, so a trip to Milledgeville (see map and directions from Mooseheart to Milledgeville) isn't going to be a massive inconvenience.

Mooseheart (7-2) was paired with Milledgeville (7-2) in the opening round of the Illinois High School Assn. Class 1A playoffs when the pairings were announced Saturday night.

In so doing, the Ramblers just barely missed hosting in the opening round. Mooseheart earned the #5 seed in its eight-team bracket, to Milledgeville's #4 -- so the Ramblers will be the visiting team, hosted by the Missiles, who play in the Northwest Upstate Illini South Conference.

Game time is set for 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 27 -- allowing enough time to head west to Milledgeville following traditional annual Mooseheart Founder's Day ceremonies, set for 9 a.m. at Mooseheart's House of God. Moose visitors from both Ohio and Michigan, long scheduled to be present for those festivities (commemorating Mooseheart founder James J. Davis), are invited to make the trek following the team bus.

Founder's Day Weekend activities will have a "Go Red Ramblers" feel from the start, as the now-traditional 5 p.m. Friday night pizza party at the Mooseheart Fieldhouse -- complimentary to the entire community and to Moose visitors from Michigan and Ohio -- will be interrupted midway through for a Ramblers football pep rally, featuring Coach Urwiler's comments and introductions of his team.

Then, on Saturday, Urwiler, along with Mooseheart Executive Director Scott Hart, will congratulate the Ramblers players during the Founder's Day gathering in the House of God (a ceremony that has traditionally involved presentation of new Mooseheart letter jackets to all athletes having earned them in the past year); then Hart and the Moose visitors will send Urwiler and the team out the House of God doors with their best wishes, on their way west to Milledgeville before 10 a.m. The Ramblers' bus will stop at their training camp site at Mooseheart Camp Ross, south of Mt. Morris, for a private team lunch enroute to the game site.

Other Founder's Day activities will continue on campus -- including 10:30 a.m. presentations by Michigan Moose members at Michigan Home, through to issuance at 11 a.m. of box lunches to visitors at the Fieldhouse -- but the Moose visitors from Ohio and Michigan will then have plenty of time to head west to Milledgeville as well, in cars and buses, to swell the Mooseheart cheering section in plenty of time for the 2 p.m. kickoff. (Founder's Day afternoon activities previously scheduled on campus have been canceled.) Men and women of the Moose from nearby Lodges and Chapters in DeKalb, Dixon, Freeport, Mt. Morris, Princeton, Rochelle, Savanna, Sterling and Sycamore have been alerted and invited to flock to Milledgeville, as well. Admission is $4 per person--adults, students and seniors alike.

Urwiler said he's been advised that the visitors' side bleachers are rather small -- but that attendees are free to encircle the sidelines along the running track. And, Milledgeville officials have offered to make a public-address announcement acknowledging the Moose visitors from far and wide during the game.

Once a nearly-perennial playoff qualifier, Milledgeville hasn't played in a postseason football game since 2002.

"When I was a player (in the mid-1980s), Milledgeville was always talked about," Urwiler said. "I didn't know they hadn't been to the playoffs in awhile. They should be hungry to come out and get a win."

Urwiler said he hopes his team is hungry as well. The Ramblers enter the postseason on a three-game winning streak -- and benefited from the news late last week that one of their on-field losses had turned into a victory. Maranatha Baptist forfeited its first eight games, including its 22-13 win over Mooseheart, for fielding an ineligible player.

"Friday (28-6 win over Kirkland-Hiawatha) was a phenomenal way to end the season,`` Urwiler said. "With all the attention we've gotten, to get a double win on Friday was awesome. We have a lot of momentum going for us."

Mooseheart is making its second consecutive playoff appearance. The Ramblers lost 44-12 to Cambridge in the opening round of the 2006 postseason. Mooseheart has not won a playoff game since 1985 (when Coach Urwiler was a junior and the starting quarterback). The Ramblers -- the second-smallest school in Illinois playing interscholastic football -- are making their seventh overall playoff appearance.

"I think we're playing our best ball right now,`` Urwiler said. ``And I would like the team to go into Milledgeville trying to win the game, rather than just being happy to have made the playoffs."