The Temple Wildcats’ first two games of the 2007 high school football season - a 21-17 win over South Garland, then a 38-28 loss to Round Rock McNeil - have produced all of those things.
On the positive side, the Wildcats have rushed for 569 yards in their new Wing-T offense, scored five touchdowns of 56 yards or longer and forced eight turnovers on defense.
On the negative side, Temple has allowed 467 rushing yards and 357 passing yards, passed for only 74 yards and converted just one of its eight takeaways into points.
Therefore, the Wildcats (1-1) take plenty of promise and plenty of questions into their battle with the Abilene Cooper Cougars (1-0) at 7:30 tonight at Shotwell Stadium.
“There are lots of positives and yet lots to build on,” Temple third-year coach Bryce Monsen said. “So where are we at as a football team? I don’t know yet. We don’t know as a staff yet.
“We’re excited to go out to Cooper and play, because the identity of the Temple Wildcats . . . we’re getting there, but we’re not even close. Once we put all of the pieces together, we really feel like we’ll have a fine football team.”
Along with meeting its preseason goal of creating at least three turnovers per game, Temple has enjoyed a major bright spot with its Wing-T ground attack in general and sophomore running back Lache Seastrunk in particular.
Showcasing the speed that made him District 13-5A’s 100-meter champion as a freshman, Seastrunk has rushed for an area-best 337 yards on only 24 carries - a 14-yard average. He scored on dashes of 75 and 20 yards in the neutral-site opener in Waco and sprints of 56 and 66 yards last week at Wildcat Stadium.
“He’s a very special kid,” Cooper second-year coach Mike Spradlin - whose Cougars won 21-6 at Weatherford two weeks ago - said of Seastrunk. “He and the other horses they’ve got . . . I haven’t seen that team speed in a while, and we’re very concerned about it. We have to make ’em earn it. The key for us is to play assignment football.”
Senior fullback Adrian Reaves-Brown also had a big game against McNeil, scoring from 77 yards away en route to a 122-yard night.
But the Wildcats also had many problems as the Mavericks overtook their 28-24 lead in the third quarter and gained a 10-point win. Temple lost three fumbles, and its defense ended up allowing 443 yards in a whopping 74 plays.
Monsen said that performance left his squad with mixed feelings.
“The defense feels good because they caused five turnovers, but they don’t feel good because they allowed a lot of yards,” he said. “The offense feels good because they scored 28 points and had 400-something yards, but they don’t feel good because our defense gave them the ball five times (off turnovers) in good areas and we didn’t capitalize.”
All of those things leave the Wildcats hungry to keep the good stuff and drop the bad in their first true road test.
“It’s going to be a challenge and this will be an interesting game to see how we handle it,” Monsen said. “It’s a long trip, but our take on it is that we’re going out there with the mindset of getting after them and trying to get a win."
gwille@temple-telegram.com
