Meet the Rockford Register Star's 2023-24 High School Boys Coach of the Year

After another strong school year of high school sports, it's time to announce our Coach of the Year for boys squads for the entire 2023-24 school year.

The Coach of the Year for the girls teams will come later this week.

Here's our Boys Athlete of the Year: Find out who we selected as the Rockford Register Star's Boys Athlete of the Year

But today it's all about just one guy: the new Rockford Register Star Coach of the Year for the boys teams. And for what he was able to accomplish this past record-setting season while building the dynasty that is Byron football, that honor will go to Byron's Jeff Boyer.

"The kids deserve the credit, of course, and there are a lot of people that make this program go the way it does," Boyer said this week when he learned of the honor. "The assistant coaches, the parents, the entire community, everybody pitches in with their part... But really, they broke all those records because of how hard the kids worked."

This Tigers team had locked down the program's third state title by halftime of the championship game. Byron led 49-0 at half after rushing for 378 yards, and the Tigers broke the state scoring record on Brayden Knoll's 34-yard TD run to kickstart the second half. They wound up pounding another state power, Mt. Carmel, 69-7.

"It was just business as usual," Boyer said back then.

Well, kind of, yeah.

Byron took second in 2019 and 2020 and won it all in 2021, but was then swallowed up 35-0 by Elmhurst IC Catholic in the semifinals in 2022. Last year, this was a team on a mission.

Remember Byron's state title dominance?: Byron football shows off young talent in most impressive state championship yet

In the end, the Tigers of 2023 finished up as the highest-scoring team ever in the state of Illinois with 823 points and they eclipsed the IHSA touchdown record that Lena-Winslow set the year before, finishing with 108. Even the 56-point margin of victory was the largest in IHSA championship game history, eclipsing Stillman Valley's 52-point win in the 2009 title game.

And, well, Boyer's Tigers could be just as good — or dare we say better — next year.

They won the state title game led by freshman quarterback Andrew Talbert (154 yards on five carries with three TDs), sophomore fullback Caden Considine (17-153 and two TDs), and junior halfback Brayden Knoll (103 yards on six rushes with a pair of touchdowns). Junior lineman Nolan Brass was key to the whole thing as well.

"There are so many kids that were a part of that season that we have coming back, and man does that help build confidence," said Boyer, who is 115-27 in his first 12 years at the helm at Byron. "And every year it's a different puzzle to put together... But the bar has been set really high around here, and it's pretty much, every year, they look at it like the state championship is the goal."

Other local coaches of boys teams who were in the running for Coach of the Year include:

• Lena-Winslow head football coach Ric Arand, whose team fell just short of sweeping its fourth straight state title by finishing second. Arand had this team clicking throughout and he built a coaching staff that won 32 games in a row and 19 straight playoff games before falling 14-0 in the Class 1A state title football game. Arand and Le-Win still have six state championships since 2010.
• Jeff Beck, Belvidere North's head football coach who led the Blue Thunder to the third round of the playoffs for only the second time in school history where they lost 14-10 to Lake Zurich in the Class 6A quarterfinals.
• Bobby Heisler, who nearly sparked Pecatonica's boys basketball team to its first state tournament. They lost 68-66 in overtime in the Class 1A DeKalb Supersectional to Aurora Christian, falling one win short of the state tourney.
• Joe Erb, who led the Winnebago boys track and field team to its first state championship as a team just last month. Led by sprinter Supreme Muhammad, who won the 100- and 200-meter dash state titles and led the two sprint relays to runner-up finishes, Winnebago edged Tuscola by three points.

Rockford Register Star sports reporter Matt Trowbridge contributed to this story.

Jay Taft is a Rockford Register Star sports reporter. Email him at jtaft@rrstar.com and follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @JayTaft . Sign up for the Rockford High School Sports Newsletter here at rrstar.com . Jay has covered a variety of sports, from the Chicago Bears and Blackhawks to local youth sports, since the turn of the century at the Register Star .

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Meet the Rockford Register Star's 2023-24 High School Boys Coach of the Year