The 220-pound senior scored the game’s final touchdown on a 43-yard run through a big hole on the right on fourth down with 7:05 left.
District 12-5A champion Cove (10-1) advanced to the area round to face Garland Naaman Forest - a 20-6 winner over Carrollton Creekview - at this venue at 7:30 p.m. next Friday.
The Bulldawgs were playing without 10-game starting quarterback Cody Vaughn, who injured his shoulder in last week’s win over Harker Heights. Enter Brock, whose first carry of the game at tailback was maybe Cove’s biggest of the night. He finished with 64 yards on five carries, all but one of which occurred in the last eight minutes.
His first carry came on a fake punt late in the third quarter, a 4-yard run on fourth-and-1 from the Cove 49. The Texas Christian commitment also made several big tackles on defense.
“Tanner Brock is an All-American football player, and you’ve got to use someone like him,” Cove coach Jack Welch said.
Brock’s TD came on a play in what Welch called “our Big Daddy offense,” which includes 300-plus-pound reserve lineman Kendryx Madison.
“That’s part of our package,” Welch said. “We would have used it in the first quarter if we needed to. Once (Brock) is moving forward, he’s hard to stop.”
Six plays after Brock’s TD, his brother Cooper sacked Horn quarterback Emory Miller for a 5-yard loss at the Cove 45 on third-and-10. Miller threw incomplete on the next play, giving the Dawgs the ball with 5:11 left to play. They ran out the clock with a 10-play drive that included two 8-yard runs by Brock.
Cove’s other two touchdowns also came on big plays, a 39-yard run by Brelan Chancellor to make it 7-0 late in the first quarter, and a 63-yarder to make it 14-7 with 6:26 left in the third quarter. Chancellor finished with 160 yards on 14 carries to help take the pressure off new quarterback Nick Greene, who was 0-of-5 passing but had 68 yards on 11 carries.
“Nick did a fantastic job,” Welch said. “He had some first-game mistakes and he knew that. But you can’t get the feeling of a game without playing.”
Welch praised offensive coordinator Tracy Welch for “doing a fantastic job of moving the ball around. This is one of the best offensive jobs the coaches have done.”
Miller tied the score at 7-7 with 2:59 left in the second quarter on a 7-yard run. He finished with 52 yards rushing on 14 carries.
The Horn quarterback did most of his damage through the air, throwing for 257 yards on 36-of-50 passing. His lone interception came with 4:14 left in the third quarter when Dezmon Gibson made a fantastic nab at the Cove 40. It was one of four turnovers in the game, three by Horn. The Jaguars’ other turnovers were a second-quarter fumble recovered by Brandon Durant with Cove up 7-0 at the 9:18 mark, and a fumble that Reggie Chapman pounced on one play before Chancellor’s 63-yard TD.
Cove’s lone turnover was a Greene fumble after a 10-yard run to the Horn 21 with 10:05 to play. But Horn (4-7) went four-and-out. Four plays later, Brock scored his 43-yard TD.
