Friday Night Drive fantasy draft: Round 2

A quick review of the rules before we get into the second round:

• We're using a standard snake draft with a quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers and a flex position.

• The player pool goes back to 2000, but a player must have played their final high school game to be eligible. So sadly, no, we weren't allowed to just draft East St. Louis' starting offense from this year.

• I left the criteria for how we would judge the best team extremely vague. I didn't want everyone to simply pull up the IHSA record books.

• We will post results round by round. Once completed, we'll compile the rosters and set up a poll so readers can vote for who they believe drafted the best team.

Previous rounds: Round 1.

8. Joe Stevenson: Jacardia Wright, RB, Decatur St. Teresa. Wright played at a smaller school, but fantasy is a numbers game and his numbers were off the charts: No. 2 IHSA career rusher behind James Robinson at 8,821; No. 2 in career touchdowns (133); No. 2 in TDs for a season (48). I thought long and hard about a quarterback here, but Wright was too good to pass up.

9: Eddie Carifio: Anthony Maddie, QB, Joliet Catholic/Aurora Christian. I almost let Joe change my pick here as I fear he may have started a run on receivers. But I really want Maddie as my quarterback. He's 15th in the state all-time in passing yards, 11th in total touchdowns, he ran for 1,100 yards and 18 scores as a senior, and won a state title in 2009. He went on to play at NIU, though mostly as a backup. The Huskies were even going to use him as a receiver in 2016 until injuries pressed him back into duty under center.

10: Kyle Nabors: Rashard Mendenhall, RB, Niles West. I didn't intend to go with back-to-back Illinois alums, but I guess that's not a bad thing when they both were a part of the 2007 Illini team that reached the Rose Bowl. A five-star recruit at Niles West, Mendenhall nearly averaged a first down every time he touched the ball.

11: Josh Welge: Laquon Treadwell, WR, Crete-Monee. I'm going to stay true to my roots in the south suburbs with this big, physical receiver. Treadwell, who recently signed with the Atlanta Falcons, led Crete-Monee to the 2012 Class 6A championship. For his career, all Treadwell did was catch 210 passes, eighth-most in IHSA history, for 3,563 yards, fourth-most in IHSA history, for 41 touchdowns, tied for ninth-most. Like my first pick, Justin Jackson, he showed he can get it done at every level, with 202 career receptions at Mississippi, tops in program history and seventh-most in SEC history.

12: Steve Soucie: Miles Boykin, WR, Providence. You sniped my pick Welge. I won't forget that. I was hoping that I could possibly form a dominant wide receiver tandem in rounds 2 and 3 here by selecting Treadwell and my selection here, which I certainly don't consider to be a consolation prize. Boykin was an absolute monster matchup problem for any opponent that had to square off with Providence. He routinely made catches that were inexplicable. Not surprisingly, he had an extremely productive career at Notre Dame post high school with nearly 60 receptions as a junior and then entered the NFL draft where he was selected and now plays for the Baltimore Ravens.

13: J.T. Pedelty: Flynn Nagel, WR, Marist/Lemont. Who am I to resist a good run on wide receivers? It doesn't hurt that I had my eye on taking Nagel here ever since Joe took Westerkamp to finish up the opening round, and I'm surprised the Marist, Lemont and Northwestern product (and current member of the XFL's Dallas Renegades) fell to me after a prep career which placed him third all-time in receiving yards and second in both receptions (is this PPR?) and touchdowns. A score — especially knowing I can grab Nagel in the second and still have my pick of any QB on the board in the third since John's already drafted his.

14: John Sahly: Ty Pennington, RB, Cary-Grove. I think it's pretty clear I'm running an option offense here. Pennington was one of the best backs I've ever seen in an option offense. He's tied for 11th all-time in state history for touchdowns by a running back, and was the engine that made the state champion Trojans go.