The Bulldawgs (13-1) and the Pirates (12-2) will square off in a Class 5A Division II state semifinal at 6 p.m. today at Waco ISD Stadium, with the winner advancing to its first 5A state championship game to play Katy or Smithson Valley next Saturday at Houston’s Reliant Stadium.
“We’ve been through a lot of injuries and are just now coming to full strength,” Welch said. “We put in our backup quarterback and the more reps he takes the better he gets, and we’ve had a running back-by-committee.”
That backup quarterback, Nick Greene, took over the starting job for the first playoff game after fellow junior Cody Vaughn was injured.
Greene failed to complete a pass in his first start and was 0-for-13 before finally connecting. But now he’s completed 19 of 45 passes for 247 yards, including a 5-for-13 performance for 83 yards with touchdown passes to Sherome Miller and Josh Kasten in last week’s 45-7 win over Klein Oak in the Region II final.
“We were actually a little scared because once you have a guy at quarterback you don’t really think about if he’s going to get hurt,” tight end Kasten said. “Nick was nervous the first couple of games. We helped him out, got him going and he’s pretty confident now.”
In the running game, Brandin Byrd was the hot player early in the season and has 1,060 rushing yards. But the last two weeks, Will Wright has averaged 229 yards per game to move his total to 1,053.
Byrd and Wright, both juniors, have been almost interchangeable, with both being able to move from fullback to tailback and also work some in the slot as needed.
And except for senior wide receiver Josh Boyce, none of Cove’s current starters on offense was a starter last year when the Bulldawgs advanced to their second consecutive 4A Division I state championship game. Cove fell to Rosenberg Lamar Consolidated a year after losing the title game to San Antonio Alamo Heights.
The Bulldawgs didn’t have much more experience returning on defense, with the main player being all-state linebacker Tanner Brock.
But that hasn’t stopped Cove from getting to the state semifinals for the third straight year and tying its program record for wins in a season.
“This has been one of the (most fun) years of coaching,” Welch said. “And I really enjoy coaching. That’s simply because of all the things we preach, and these guys have done it. We don’t have a 2,000-yard rusher. We don’t have a bunch of chest-pounders who say, ‘Me, me, me.’ But we have a good team.
“One thing that helped us was our loss to A&M Consolidated (in a District 12-5A game in College Station). We had been winning and sometimes you get to resting on your laurels. When we got defeated we understood we have to execute.”
And that they’ve done. The Bulldawgs have outscored their playoff opponents 137-71.
But Cove will have its hands full against a Wylie team that has outscored its playoff opponents 150-76 in capturing the Region I crown.
The Pirates are a passing team behind quarterback Jeron Monk, who has completed 201 of 309 attempts for 2,611 yards and 21 touchdowns, with only four interceptions. The running game is solid as well, with Nick Knott rushing for 1,195 yards on 137 carries and Monk adding 767 yards on 123 carries.
“We feel like our offense is really well-balanced and creates a big challenge,” Wylie coach Bill Howard said. “Copperas Cove is going to have to decide what they want to stop.”
The Bulldawgs’ running game will also get a huge test from the Pirates, who feature a two-time district defensive MVP in nose guard Nikita Whitlock.
“He has one gear, and it’s wide open,” Howard said. “It’s not so much that he dominates, but you can’t stop him with just one guy. A lot of teams just don’t understand how good he is until they go up against him, and we feel good when teams have to scheme around him.”
Welch expects Whitlock to be a major part of the game.
“He is key to their whole team,” Welch said. “He was the most valuable player and is fast and quick. You have to know where he is. He is a dominant force for them like Russell Shepard is to (Houston) Cy-Ridge.”
Louisiana State-bound quarterback Shepard accounted for more than 500 yards total offense in Cove’s 55-48 win two rounds ago. After the game Shepard called Cove the best team he had ever played.
Whitlock might or might not say the same thing after tonight’s meeting with Cove. The Pirates have played a lot of tough teams just to get into the playoffs, including 13-1 Allen, which is in a 5A Division I semifinal tonight.
“When you have to play Allen, Plano, Plano East, Plano West week after week in your district, it prepares you for the playoffs,” Howard said. “We felt we should have won our games against Plano (38-31) and Allen (31-28) but in both we had officials make calls that didn’t go our way.
“Cove is a good team, a good running team. And we’ve played against a lot of good running teams and have been the underdog the entire way. This time it’s going to be about which defense is up to the challenge.”
But up to this point, Wylie hasn’t strayed far from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, playing all of its playoff games at Irving’s Texas Stadium. It’s surprising that although Cove has a 10-1 record in playoff games in Waco the last four years, Thomas was happy to make the trip.
“It’s just the way it fell,” he said of playing all the games at Texas Stadium. “Everybody we played wanted to play there because they felt like they had an advantage, so we kind of got stuck there. We were really ready to move away. And we’ve had success at Waco ISD. We’ve won some playoff games there and won in the H-E-B Kickoff Classic.”
Welch doesn’t think playing at Waco ISD gives the Bulldawgs an advantage, either.
“It is a good neutral site for teams from the Metroplex,” he said. “And for our fans it’s easy in, easy out, so we love it because it’s a good neutral site that’s easy for our fans to get to.
“But for us, as long as you have the right turf, that’s the main thing. They have turf we are used to playing on. And if we had flipped for a home-home and they put up Texas Stadium, we were looking at Leo Buckley (Stadium in Killeen) or (Temple’s) Wildcat Stadium. But we just agreed on Waco."
mhood@temple-telegram.com
