Before Friday’s 6A championship game, Lone Peak linebacker Michael Daley is feeling like a little kid on Christmas Eve — too excited to sleep.
“I think we’re all way too excited, honestly. I think any time you have an opportunity to play in a championship game, where the stakes are that high, one goes home a loser and one comes home a winner. I’d say our whole team, we know we need to sleep, but at the same time, get that extra hour of film in every night, you do the little things to make sure that we’re ready. We’re all ecstatic and really excited to be able to have the opportunity to play in the state championship game,” Daley said.
Daley, one of the biggest pieces of Lone Peak’s defense, credits much of his development over his years at the school to his coaches.
“I’d also say that here at Lone Peak, we have the best coaches in the state, and I really do believe that. Their schemes, the way they interact with us, it’s always a business mentality, but they’re great role models as well. They’re all great men and I really look up to all my coaches,” Daley said.
In an injury-plagued junior year in 2017, Daley totaled 32 tackles and five sacks.
“Last year, I had a lot of injuries, I was hurt four or five of the games last year, so injuries kind of derailed me from last year,” Daley said.
This year, Daley is having a monster season, racking up 65 tackles and 20.5 sacks. Daley leads all of 6A by eight sacks.
“Just having a year of varsity under my belt really helped. In the offseason, picking up the offers from Air Force and BYU an UNLV and being able to commit to the Y. You just want to go out there and prove to everybody, especially to BYU, that they made the right decision for offering you. It’s just fun, go out there and give 100 percent every single play, it doesn’t even matter about stats. You just play for the team and hopefully we can win ballgames,” Daley said.
Daley has impressed his coaches with his play this season.
“Michael is a fantastic player, but more importantly, he’s a fantastic kid who’s stepped up as a leader this year for us and has done a lot of great things off the field as well as everyone knows what he does on the field. Just proud to be around him, just a great kid,” Lone Peak head coach Bart Brockbank said.
Daley has committed to BYU and says that the family atmosphere at the Y. was what drew him to the program.
“Honestly, it’s a family to me. All my family has gone there, the family, the legacy that I have there and my family, it’s just the right thing for me to do. When you go to college, there’s so much more that goes into college other than football. Coach Sitake, the brotherhood there, the family atmosphere, the academics at BYU, a lot of things that I would like to major in,” Daley said. “Football’s not everything, so you’ve got to go to a place where a lot of your values and meanings go into that college and all those fit into BYU for me.”
Daley is ready for one last ride, on the biggest stage in Utah high school football.
“We’ve got to ball out. On defense, it’s 11 hats to the ball, we’ve got to play hard and fast and offensively, same game plan, I think. We’ve got to come out and show them what we can really do,” Daley said.