Naperville Central: September 2008 Archives

Surprisingly, Naperville Central didn't tumble out of the Sun-Times top 25, but then again that's also probably a sign of how highly Wheaton Warrenville South is regarded. Within this piece, Steve Tucker writes of this week's crosstown at North Central College: This will be the first in a series of big tests for the reigning Class 8A state champions. Could Nick Mlady be the school's second consecutive Sun-Times Player of the Year?

With that in mind, what's your early crosstown prediction? And who's your first-half MVP?

Well, Naperville Central certainly got what it wanted, Wheaton Warrenville South coming into Memorial Stadium with its 23-game DuPage Valley Conference and 31-game regular-season winning streaks intact.

Four DuPage Valley Conference teams are spotlighted in the latest Chicago Sun-Times poll and those heavyweight programs will be colliding on Friday night. No. 3 Naperville North hosts No. 23 Glenbard North, while No. 4 Wheaton Warrenville South brings its 31-game regular season winning streak to No. 16 Naperville Central.

What would your ballot look like?

UPDATE: The show is not going to be broadcast from Naperville North. Not sure why the change happened.

ESPN Radio 1000 will broadcast its High School GameNight show from Naperville Central on Friday night after the Redhawks play Wheaton Warrenville South in a game that will influence who wins the DuPage Valley Conference football championship .

The show airs from 10-11 p.m. and features interviews with players and coaches from around Chicagoland.

Wheaton North running back Mike Trumpy is a threat to score every time he touches the ball. That's part of the reason why the next phase of his career will be playing on Saturdays in the Big Ten. The Northwestern recruit will line up on Friday night against a Naperville Central defense that's allowing only 9.7 rushing yards per game.

FoxSports.com (via Profootballtalk.com) reported on Sunday that New Orleans Saints head coach and Naperville native Sean Payton got a new five-year contract this week.

Payton, a 1982 graduate of Naperville Central, will have a salary that puts him in the top five in the NFL for head coaches.

FOX Sports has learned that Benson this week ripped up head coach Sean Payton's current contract agreement and has rewarded him with a new five-year contract -- a deal which catapults him among the five highest-paid head coaches in the NFL.

Payton now joins the upper echelon in coaching salaries and is presumed to be behind only Seattle's Mike Holmgren, Denver's Mike Shanahan, Tennessee's Jeff Fisher and New England's Bill Belichick.

District 129 will be running a live video webcast of Friday's Naperville Central at West Aurora game. Coverage is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and will be available at www.sd129.org.

For Naperville Central, this is about perception versus reality on two fronts - what its DuPage Valley Conference schedule looks like on paper, and how its spread offense controls the ball.

Every program enters Week 1 with question marks, whether you're the defending Class 8A state champions (Naperville North) or a team that just missed the playoffs (Lake Park) last season. Naperville Central falls somewhere between those extremes, and coach Mike Stine kind of laughed when asked for his impressions off the Waubonsie Valley game film - everyone feels like they have a long way to go on both sides of the ball.

Today we looked at special teams play and how it influenced several season openers. As crazy as some of those game-changing plays were, check out this view of the DuPage Valley Conference:

-Seven of eight DVC teams won in Week 1.
-That group includes Glenbard East (1-0) and West Chicago (1-0), which went a combined 3-15 last season.
-Meanwhile Glenbard North, the only DVC program to lose its opener, was the Class 8A runner-up in 2007.
-And despite losing to Bartlett 28-21, Glenbard North came away with the most playoff points (nine) in the conference from Friday night. All nine teams on the Panthers' schedule are currently 1-0.

Any guesses as to how the DVC will look after Week 9?