This and that

• In case you missed it: Nice piece about Sycamore High School and UC alum Kevin Youkilis from the Boston Herald over the weekend.

• Another "In case you missed it" about a ballplayer from here: Junior said he's not going to retire and he'd like to return to the White Sox if they want him back.

• So Corey Patterson won't be back next year. John Fay says Paul Bako's out too. Mark Sheldon's mailbag is worth reading if you're thinking about what else the Reds might do during the offseason.

• Charley Casserly writes about the Texans and Bengals needing to keep an upbeat approach. Sound advice, but who are they going to beat? I'm actually surprised they're only a 6-point underdog at the Meadowlands this weekend. Then they play 4-1 Pittsburgh. They could be 0-7 going into that showdown with the Texans (in Houston) Oct. 26. It's pretty bad after that too. Jacksonville, Philadelphia, at Pittsburgh, at Indy (when they likely won't have as many O-line issues) ... I just don't see how they can be positive when they know they're probably going to end up 4-12 or 3-13.

• Tennessean.com mentions Chad as one of the receivers who could be on the market should the Titans decide to go after one. Albert Haynesworth even talks about whether Chad would be a good fit for his team.

• ProFootballTalk.com says there's no truth to the Dayton Daily News report that the 49ers are interested in trading for T.J. Houshmandzadeh. And they slam the DDN (and Dayton, for that matter) pretty hard in doing so. Here's the DDN report from yesterday.

• While you're on ProFootballTalk, check out the piece about Marvin Lewis praising Cedric Benson's work ethic. And they've got my favorite non-local link of the day about the Saints putting that photo of the facemask penalty that wasn't called in Monday night's game on their Web site.

• My buddy Stewart has UC among three teams on the rise in his latest mailbag. And the coach of UC's next opponent, Rutgers, says he overestimated his team's talent. Wow, the Scarlet Knights sure do have a lot of issues right now.

• Another former co-worker at SI.com, John Hollinger, wrote a piece about the Hornets' Prosser connection (Posey, West and Paul) you might enjoy even if you don't follow the NBA.

• If you do follow NBA or you're a big fan of former Buckeyes, J.A. Adande wrote about Greg Oden's preseason debut.

• Elder makes an appearance in the latest USA Today Super 25. Colerain, previously No. 8, dropped out after losing to Middletown Friday.