Favorite for AAAA Division I State Championship

[Guest TravelingBandsman]

Pick who your liking for the championship

[KFDM COOP]

Coach Barry Norton and Texas High.

[Guest reddog]

Guys I really like Th but if there is a team that take them out it is the Cove. Hope that TH goes all the way and gets a ring.

[Guest Nederland Bulldogs]

Texas High

[bh89-2]

Guys I really like Th but if there is a team that take them out it is the Cove. Hope that TH goes all the way and gets a ring.

They (C-Cove) have an AWSOME defense. :shock: :shock:

[kicker]

Im gonna go see the Barry Norton show tonight. :wink:

[Guest reddog]

Guys I really like Th but if there is a team that take them out it is the Cove. Hope that TH goes all the way and gets a ring.

What did I tell you guys and look what happened? Copperas Cove 30 and Texas High27. :shock:

[Guest reddog]

I really think that Coach Norton is going to catch some heat over this one. Should he? NO WAY but a frist round loss to HP last year and now this?

Dawgs upset top-ranked Texas High, advance to semifinals

IRVING – Copperas Cove's Jesse Figueroa intercepted a pass late in the game to give the Bulldawgs their first regional football title with a 30-27 victory over top-ranked Texas High at Texas Stadium on Friday night.

For the second consecutive week, the Cove defense stepped up late in the fourth quarter and intercepted the opposing quarterback as he was marching his team in for a tying or winning score.

The win put the Dawgs in the Class 4A Division I Final Four.

"I praise God that we were able to pick up the victory tonight," Copperas Cove head coach Jack Welch said. "This football team gives it everything that they have every single game and that's all that you could ever ask for as a coach."

Figueroa came up with the play of the game with 19 seconds remaining as he intercepted a Ryan Mallet pass intended for Joe Anderson at his own 20-yard line.

It appeared that the victory had already been clinched about one minute earlier as Royel Johnson picked off a Mallett pass at the Cove 36 and returned it to his own 44.

After the interception, all the Dawgs had to do to clinch the victory was pick up one first down with the Tigers down to one timeout remaining.

After taking possession of the ball, junior quarterback Robert Griffin ran a draw plaw up the middle. but rather than staying inbounds and forcing the Tigers to take a timeout, Griffin ran out of bounds, running only nine seconds off the clock and preserving the timeout for Texas High.

The Tigers stopped Cove dead in its tracks the next two plays, calling immediate timeouts afterward and receiving the ball at their own 24-yard line.

Mallett, who earlier Friday was named the Gatorade Texas Player of the Year, drove his team into Cove territory in only 36 seconds, but his pass intended for Anderson was intercepted by Figueroa.

"That first interception was a huge play," Welch said. "I thought if we could make one first down and run the game clock out, we would win, but we weren't able to."

After John T. Johnson sprinted 45 yards untouched down the left sideline on a pitch from Mallett that gave the Tigers a 10-0 lead, the Bulldawg offense began to get untracked.

Fullback Billy Abreu capped a 10-play, 3:08 drive as he walked into the end zone from 3 yards out.

The momentum continued to grow for Copperas Cove as Texas High's Josh Murphy fumbled the ensuing kickoff and Figueroa was right there to recover the ball on the Texas High 43-yard line.

Copperas Cove (11-2) capitalized on the turnover when Robert Griffin hit Logan Brock on a 14-yard screen pass for a touchdown with only 23 seconds gone in the second quarter.

The Tigers immediately returned the favor and cut the deficit to one point on Jarrod Russell's second field goal. A 70-yard pass from Mallett to John T. Johnson on the first play from scrimmage was the big play of the drive.

Jerrard Millsap answered that Tiger score with a 23-yard touchdown run for Cove midway through the second quarter and when Craig Wood blocked a Mallett punt at the Texas High 34-yard line, it appeared the Dawgs were going to go in for another score. Millsap finished the night with 109 yards rushing on just 12 carries.

Texas High (12-1) stepped up its defense and held Cove to three-and-out and cut the lead to 21-19 when Rowland Smith waltzed into the end zone from 6 yards out.

The Tigers chose to go for the two-point conversion but were denied after an unneccessary roughness penalty and a false start forced them to try and convert from the Cove 23-yard line.

Cove increased the lead to nine points on its first possession of the second half as Griffin scored a touchdown on a 12-yard run.

It appeared that a safety iced the game for Copperas Cove with 10:44 remaining as the first of two Kyle Mathews downed punts at the 1-yard line forced Texas High to drive the length of the field.

On the first play from scrimmage, Mallett was stopped in the end zone and fumbled but the Tigers recovered, producing only a safety.

The Dawgs failed to get a first down on the next drive, but Mathews pinned the Tigers back to their own 1-yard line again.

This time Mallett drove Texas High 99 yards in just over 2 minutes and capped it by catching a pass from Anderson with 5:32 remaining. He then found Daniel Glover in the end zone with a pass for the two-point conversion.

Once again the Dawgs were stopped without a first down and Mallett drove the Tigers into field goal position but threw the first of his two interceptions. Mallett finished the evening with 358 yards on 22-of-40 passing.

"We played a great football game tonight," Welch said. "Texas High is a great team that is well-coached and has great athletes. Tonight we continued to play 48 minutes and came out victorious."

Copperas Cove will play the winner of today's Aledo-Plainview game next week in the state semifinals. According to Welch, if Aledo wins, the likely location is Waco and if Plainview wins, the location would be Abilene.

Copp. Cove 7 14 7 2 — 30

Texas High 10 9 0 8 — 27

First quarter

T—Jarrod Russell 33 FG

T—John T. Johnson 45 run (Russell kick)

CC—Billy Abreu 3 run (Kyle Mathews kick)

Second quarter

CC—Logan Brock 14 pass from Robert Griffin (Mathews kick)

T—Russell 20 FG

CC—Jerrard Millsap 23 run (Mathews kick)

T—Rowland Smith 6 run (run failed)

Third quarter

CC—Griffin 12 run (Mathews kick)

Fourth quarter

CC—safety, ball fumbled out of end zone

T—Ryan Mallett 17 pass from Joseph Anderson (Daniel Glover pass from Mallett)

Texas High Copp. Cove

First Downs 22 17

Rushes-Yards 20-99 38-175

Comp-Att-Int 24-42-2 13-18-0

Passing Yards 408 132

Total Yards 507 307

Fumbles-Lost 3-1 2-0

Penalties-Yards 3-15 2-25

Punts-Avg 0-0 6-31.3

Individual Stats

Rushing

T—John T. Johnson 3-58, Rowland Smith 15-37, Ryan Mallett 2-4

CC—Jerrard Millsap 13-118, Don’nell Greer 4-30, Robert Griffin 14-26, Billy Abreu 6-13, Brian Jones 1-(-12)

Passing

T—Ryan Mallett 22-40-2, 359 yards; Joseph Anderson 2-2-0, 49 yards, TD

CC—Robert Griffin 13-18-0, 132 yards, TD

Receiving

T—Daniel Glover 9-112, John T Johnson 4-89, Joseph Anderson 4-81, Ryan Mallett 2-49, Jimmie Strong 2-42, Rowland Smith 2-22, David Allday 1-13

CC—Logan Brock 5-56, Brian Jones 3-40, Josh Boyte 2-17, Don’nell Greer 1-9, Jerrard Millsap 1-6, Rashad Hawk 1-4

[KFDM COOP]

The Cove is the real deal though, they went several rounds in 5A last year.

[Guest reddog]

There were so many drop passes from what I hear and I hate this bc of Coach Norton. He is a very nice man and wished him a better outcome than this. Coaches from Marshall told me this week this could happen but man with Mallet sp? :shock:

[KFDM COOP]

I know. Coach Norton is a great coach and i hate it for him.

[Guest TravelingBandsman]

What an upset. From what I've heard about Texas High, they were juggernaut special of the year.