Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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of the 10 longest touchdown passes in Notre Dame history. It's the "over and over again" that's tricky, but it's also the part that has the Irish locker room bubbling with questions about how good Daniels can be. "The sky is the limit for him," said Jones, who had one more reception than his younger counterpart after three games. "As long as he keeps pushing and working hard, who knows how far he'll go, how great he'll be?" The second touchdown against Purdue, the long one, is the type of play that has had coaches and teammates clamoring about Daniels' potential ever since he arrived on campus. He lined up across from senior cornerback Ricardo Allen, often considered one of the better defensive backs in the Big Ten. Daniels blew past Allen 20 yards down the field. The ball reached him 15 yards later, and he spent the rest of his trip to the end zone hugging the proper side of the sideline and fending off Allen with a pair of forceful stiffarms — the second of which left the cornerback sprawled on the turf. The son of a former NFL defensive end, Daniels has the genes to be a special player. Phillip Daniels, who played for the Seahawks, Bears and Redskins during a 15-year pro career, said the stiff-arms in West Lafayette looked familiar. That was a move Daniels had relied on since peewee football when he ran wild around helpless, hapless defenders in Chicago's northern suburbs. When it came time to pick a high school, the older Daniels told his son he should consider going to an estab- lished football power in the area with a quarterback that could feed him the ball. "He said he didn't want to go to a high school that's already established and already good. He wanted to go to a high school to make them better," Daniels said. "I couldn't really argue with that." The younger Daniels went to Vernon Hills High School with his friends and joined the varsity team four weeks into his freshman year. He returned the opening kickoff in his debut 90 yards for a touchdown and never really slowed down from there. He played quarterback, wide receiver and running back in the school's Wing-T offense. Rees first met his receiver on the basketball court. The two grew up in neighboring towns, playing for rival high schools. He remembers watching Daniels dunk over one of his Lake Forest teammates and thinking that his future teammate was a rare athlete. "The way he runs and jumps, he's a very smooth player and very in control," Rees said. "There are plays he makes that other guys just can't make." Daniels made the Under Armour All-America team as a senior in high school, but needed time to adjust to a full-time role at wide receiver. After taking a redshirt as a freshman, Daniels eased into a bigger role last season and said the offense started to click late in the year. Fifteen of the 31 catches he made as a sophomore came in his last two and a half games — a streak that was interrupted by a broken collarbone that