Houston Texans tight end Owen Daniels has been named an alternate to the AFC Pro Bowl team. The Naperville Central graduate has caught 60 passes for 714 yards and two touchdowns.
Naperville Central: December 2008 Archives
CHICAGO - Sean Payton's postgame press conference in the Soldier Field interview room lasted less than two minutes Thursday night. That was almost certainly in part because of a 27-24 overtime loss to the Bears and the tight newspaper deadlines that followed. The Naperville Central graduate hit on two big themes after Danieal Manning racked up 179 return yards and Devin Hester slipped by a Cover 2 package to draw the pass interference penalty that helped set up Robbie Gould's game winning field goal.
"It's a disappointing loss," Payton said. "We lost the battle in the kicking game and that was clear tonight. That cost us not only a touchdown but probably about 120 yards in field-position differential. You're not gonna win a lot of games by playing that way.
"We were poor (in) third-and-long with the ball getting behind us in a game that (we) felt like we had to keep it in front of us...including the last play, which was third-and-long in Cover 2 coverage but we let the receivers get by us.
"If you're gonna lose 100, 115 yards in field position in the kicking game, if you're gonna continue to let receivers get behind you, (then) you're gonna end up finishing around .500 and that's what's most frustrating."
-What if the Big Ten does decide it needs a 12th member school to stage a lucrative conference championship game? Notre Dame values its football independence above all else. Syracuse football is in free fall, and its basketball program has strong ties to the Big East. Beyond that there aren't many obvious logical candidates. And nothing is imminent. But here's an interesting hypothetical that came out of New Jersey from columnist Steve Politi of The Star-Ledger, The Official Newspaper of Tony Soprano:
"If the Scarlet Knights prove they can win the Big East, if they finish the stadium expansion and keep selling out the stadium, then they can start mapping their exit strategy.
Big Ten officials insist they're not looking at expansion, but they need a 12th team to create a championship game. Rutgers, a large state institution in the shadow of the New York market, has plenty in common with the flagship schools in the Midwest conference."
-Vanderbilt defensive end Josh Jelesky, a Naperville Central graduate, is using his freshman season as a redshirt. That's not a huge surprise - coach Bobby Johnson and his staff have used the redshirt as a way to build program depth in the brutal Southeastern Conference. The Commodores (6-6) face Boston College (9-4) in the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl on Dec. 31 in Nashville, Tenn.
-Northern Illinois will play Illinois for just the fourth time in program history on Sept. 18, 2010, the DeKalb university announced Wednesday. According to the press release:
"The Illinois game continues the Huskies' commitment to scheduling in-state foes as well as Big Ten opponents. Northern Illinois will play Western Illinois at Huskie Stadium in 2009 and will play host to Big Ten foe Wisconsin on Sept. 17, 2011 at Soldier Field in Chicago. The Huskies open the 2009 season at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison and will also play at Purdue next year."
Naperville North running back Nick Mlady is our player of the year. Maybe you could make the case that Waubonsie Valley's Tyler Castro was slightly more valuable, in that you could ask: Where would the Warriors be without their senior quarterback? But think of all the big-time running backs who have gone through North's double-wing system - Mlady has rushed for more yards than any of them, doing it for a top-ranked team and DuPage Valley Conference champion. That was our rationale - what are your thoughts on the offense and defense? (Props to Dustin Harris for the Web content.)
Check in Friday for our 2008 player of the year and all-city selections. We're aiming for three pages in the print edition and Web guru Dustin Michael Harris is working on some cool online aspects. At that point, feel free to tell us how clueless we are for ignoring Player X instead of Player Y. But now that the IHSA has crowned eight state champions and the 2008 season is in the books, what are your standout moments from this year? And who do you think will be the 2009 player of the year?
