Bird Hunting
A week after notching their first win of the season, the Copperas Cove Bulldawgs will be put to the test again as they travel to Leo Buckley tonight to take on the high-flying Eagles for Ellison’s homecoming.
“In our eyes we see a 1-1 team versus a 1-1 team,” said Jack Welch, Copperas Cove head football coach and athletic director, during the weekly Quarterback Club meeting. “We’re all fighting, striving and battling for the playoffs. Ellison has a good football team. They are very much improved. This is going to be a tough-hard-fought football game but there will be sportsmanship. You have two ball clubs that are good sports and play hard.”
“They’ve made one big mistake,” added Welch. “They made us their homecoming game and we’re nobody’s queen. Someone is going to be crowned king and I expect it to be us.”
The Eagles are led by the efficient arm of two-year starting quarterback Carl Robinson III, who leads the district with 1,364 yards and 13 interceptions on 120 of 194 passes. Robinson has just three interceptions in 194 attempts. The Eagles’ offense, however, ranks fifth out of seven teams in the district in total offense with 1,915 yards.
“They’re going to throw the ball 70-80 percent of the time,” said Welch. “They have a good quarterback and he likes to scramble. We’ve got to put pressure him. We can’t just let him sit back there and pick us apart.”
The Eagles average just 73.7 yards per game on the ground in their pass-happy offense. The Eagles have three receivers in the top seven of the district, led by juniors Jayden Smith (38 for 563, 4 TDs) and X’zavier Green (32 for 289, 2 TDs).
The new-look Dawgs defense with two-way players Bradley Lawson and J.P. Urquidez will look to contain Robinson and his plethora of receivers.
A key to the victory will be the play of those two, along with senior speedsters D’mani Paepaelalo and Shamad Lomax. Both guys are playing in different positions than when the season began. Lomax and ‘Pae Pae’ improved the back end of the defense with the change. Lomax was moved from cornerback to free safety to help limit opponents big plays and ‘Pae Pae’ was moved from linebacker to cornerback to add more speed and experience to the secondary. He runs a legitimate 4.3 40-yard dash.
“What we need to do on defense is have everyone finish the play,” said Paepaelalo. “We need to hit hard, secure the quarterback and make sure we box him in because they like to scramble.”
Robinson scrambles to open the pass, though, so ‘Pae Pae’, Lomax and the rest of the ‘Dawgs secondary must stay glued to their receivers.
“He scrambles a lot but he’s not like the Schertz-Clemens quarterback, he scrambles to give his receivers time to get open and throw the ball downfield,” said Cove defensive coordinator Reb Brock. “He puts the ball on the money. I’ve been very impressed with him.”
The Bulldawgs are giving up an average of 232.3 yards per game and two passing touchdowns to opponents through the first six games. The ‘Dawgs have gotten better since the defensive shakeup, allowing just two scores on 151 passing yards in their two district tilts.
Cove has the advantage in the rushing game with the top rushing attack in the district and one of the top attacks in the state. The Dawgs have amassed 1,905 yards on the ground in six games, led by 784 yards and six scores on 87 carries by senior Antonio Lealiiee and 590 yards and nine scores on 69 totes by junior Kylan Herrera.
“Our offense, which I’m very proud of, is the fourth-ranked running offense in the state of Texas,” said Welch.
The Eagles’ defense is second best overall in the district in total yards given up. They’ve allowed just 283.8 per game with just under half of that coming on the ground.
The Eagles offer many different looks defensively to confuse opponents, sometimes even on the same play. They will shift from a three-man front to a 4-3 or 5-2 in an attempt to confuse and find weak spots.
The Dawgs will need their much-improved offensive line to maintain that growth to keep the Eagles defense at bay.
“They hardly ever stay in the same technique they start in,” said associate head coach and offensive coordinator Tracy Welch. “They’ll play a 30, a 40 and a 60. They move around quite a bit. Their strength is trying to confuse your blocking schemes. We can let that moving around and shifting get us.”
Junior Caine Garner is seeing things more clearly these days at quarterback for the Dawgs, thanks to a trip to the optometrist. He was much more effective last week against Belton in the passing game after getting corrective lenses, nearly doubling his best passing performance of the year against the strongest team in the district defending the pass.
“I’m very proud of Caine Garner,” said J. Welch. “He needed glasses bad. He has contacts and now he’s like a different man.”
The game will likely come down to the defenses as both offenses have shown the ability to be productive game in and game out. It will come down to whether or not Cove can slow down the pass better than Ellison can shut down the run.