Cooper line has played a big part in successful season

By LANCE FLEMING / Staff Writer

Webb Murphy remembers walking out on the field at Garland's Williams Stadium and seeing something that shocked him.

"I was scared to death, and then I looked up and saw fans in the stands," Cooper's junior left tackle said of his team's season-opener back on Sept. 6. "That's not something I was used to seeing."

Murphy - starting his first game on varsity that night - and his teammates went on to lose that game, 15-5.

From that less-than-stellar beginning has come a team that Friday night will play Richardson Lake Highlands in the Class 5A Division II semifinals. The winner will move into the state title game against either Houston Aldine or Austin Westlake.

At the center of Cooper's rise from 0-1 to state semifinalist has been its offensive line of Murphy, junior left guard Everet Fraser, senior center Kevin Hofmann, senior right guard Matt Royals and junior right tackle Joey Heath.

Those five average 6-3, 260 pounds and are the foundation of an offense that has steamrolled opponents over the last eight weeks.

Cooper is averaging 333.9 yards per game over the course of the regular season, but its production is even higher in the team's eight-game winning streak. Since losing to Midland Lee on Oct. 11, the Cougars have reeled off eight straight wins, and they've rarely been touched.

In those eight games Cooper is averaging 361.5 yards and 39 points.

That's a big improvement from the Garland game when the Cougars went inside the Owls' 5-yard line three times and came away with just one field goal.

"We took the blame for most of those problems," Hofmann said. "If we get inside the 20-yard line and can't punch it into the end zone, it's our fault. But we work on goal-line a lot in practice, and we've gotten a lot better at it during the year."

But Heath, who along with Royals were the only two starters back from last year's line, said it just took some time to get adjusted to each other.

"An offensive line has to work as a cohesive unit," Heath said, "and we just weren't used to each other at the beginning of the season."

And that teamwork is perhaps the most important thing in a good offensive line.

"A good offensive line has to be on the same page," Cooper offensive line coach Mike Patterson said. "We do so much combination blocking that they have be able to read each other's minds on the field."

This group, Patterson said, is the best zone blocking line he's had in his five seasons at Cooper. That's high praise, especially considering that just two seasons ago, Cooper had a line that had three all-state players in Ricky Clark, Mickey Anderson and Hubble Smith.

"This line is as talented as that group," Patterson said. "This group is bigger, if not bigger, and they do a lot of the same things. It might not be as mobile, but they're the best combination blockers we've had in five years here."

Over the last two months, the run-blocking has been second-to-none as it has sprung holes big enough for Dominic Rhodes to run for 1,212 yards in the last eight games.

"I really think it all started in the second half of the Abilene High game," Heath said. "We came out and ran the ball, and it seems like we've been able to do that ever since."

Royals said one reason for the improvement is that he and his linemates are completing plays better than they did at the beginning of the season.

"We've gotten better at finishing plays," he said. "One of the reasons we struggled early was because we weren't finishing our blocks and driving guys into the ground. Once we started doing that we were able to get the job done."

As was Rhodes, whose production picked up once the line got things going.

"But having Dominic back there makes it a lot easier," Fraser said. "He finds holes most running backs can't find. He's got a lot of heart, and he refuses to go down. One thing that helps us is that he doesn't go down on the first hit and he makes people miss."

But, really, Rhodes hasn't been hit at the line too often, thanks to a group of wide bodies up front.

Fraser, though, doesn't have the girth of the other four, but that doesn't hurt him.

"I'm a little quicker than they are," he said with a smile. "Coach Patterson says that I'm scrappy. I think I block pretty well, but I think all five of us block pretty well."