Cooper's offensive trio hard to stop

By LANCE FLEMING / Staff Writer

Over the last month, coaches around District 4-5A have tried all sorts of things to stop Cooper's potent offensive trio of Dominic Rhodes, Miles Durham and Michael Anderson.

They've tried double-teaming Durham and leaving seven players at the line of scrimmage. That doesn't work.

They've tried man-to-man coverage on Durham and eight players in the "box" - the area covering the line of scrimmage and the linebackers - and that gets them burned deep.

Odessa High coach Randy Quisenberry said he would resort to prayer to see if that would help stop Cooper. It didn't. The Cougars torched the Bronchos, 42-28, last week in the regular-season finale.

So how can the Cougars' offense - averaging 329.1 yards and 33.5 points per game - be stopped?

"I don't want to come off arrogant," Durham said, "but I don't know. We all have a lot of confidence in this offense. If people want to double me, Dominic will run all day. If they move off me and try to stop Dominic, that's when we'll start throwing it deep."

And that's the situation most teams are put into: Which to stop first, run or pass?

"It all depends on who we play," Cooper head coach Randy Allen said. "Very few people play us the same. Some teams will let us throw early, then they adjust and we can run the ball better. It just depends on the opponent."

The next opponent with this difficult assignment is Amarillo High. The Sandies will get that chance Friday night in Lubbock in a Class 5A bi-district playoff game.

Amarillo High will open the game with its focus on stopping Rhodes.

"That just goes back to our philosophy of stopping the run first," Amarillo head coach Larry Dippel said. "They might kill us throwing the ball, but you can't try to stop both. We can't commit a lot of guys to the pass, because if you do Rhodes will kill you. But then they throw it and catch it so well, and that's what makes them so explosive."

The Cougars have really exploded in the last 41/2 games after an inconsistent start.

Through its first five games, Cooper was averaging 281.6 yards and 27.4 points per game. Those were good numbers, but not the kind of numbers this team was expected to put up.

Durham had been shut out in one game and had just 22 catches for 352 yards and two touchdowns, Rhodes had been hampered by injuries and had just 460 yards and two touchdowns on 81 carries, and Anderson had thrown for only 659 yards and five touchdowns.

"It was tough, because we expected more than that," said Rhodes. "I came up here one day after those first five games and Coach Allen was talking to me about a lot of stuff. I told him I'd try work harder and put things together."

Then came the second half of the Midland Lee game when those three got cranked up, the offensive line began to jell and the offense started clicking.

Trailing 14-2 at the half, Cooper rolled up 20 points and had a chance to beat a team that was considered to have one of the best defenses in the state. The Cougars finished with 366 yards against Lee, the most the Rebels have given up this season.

"Things just happened and we started clicking," Anderson said. "But I don't necessarily feel like it's just the three of us. The team has really exploded. The offensive line has gotten better, and that's helped our offense get better."

Cooper then went out the next week and tattooed Odessa Permian, 35-21, racking up 461 yards of total offense en route to the school's first win over the Panthers since 1979. The big numbers and big nights haven't stopped since.

Consider these numbers for each player:

-- In his last five games, Rhodes has rushed for 636 yards and scored 14 touchdowns - nine on the ground, three receiving and two on kickoff returns. He also scored a district record-tying six touchdowns in the Cougars' 59-28 win over San Angelo Central.

-- Durham has come alive in the last month, catching 22 passes for 417 yards and five touchdown passes. He's caught TD passes of 28, 15, 46, 20 and 30 yards. His 46-yarder against Permian came right before halftime and gave the Cougars a 21-7 lead at the break. He was left single-covered in the final 30 seconds of the half and burned the Panthers.

-- Anderson has shown the form that could earn him first-team all-district honors. He led the league in touchdown passes with 16, and finished the year with 1,493 yards passing. In the last five games he threw for 834 yards and 11 touchdowns, including 254 yards and four touchdowns against Permian.

As Anderson said, the improvement in the offensive line can't be underscored enough. Those five players - Joey Heath, Kevin Hoffman, Webb Murphy, Everett Fraser and Matt Royals - have provided Anderson with good pass protection and given Rhodes and the other running backs enough holes to get through.

"This offense takes a lot of timing," Allen said. "And one of the keys is the offensive line. They've gotten better, and that's helped. As they began to break Dominic open, teams weren't able to double Miles and that opened up a lot of things offensively."

The Cougars also have a quick-strike offense, capable of putting up points in a hurry. That's been evident in three games in which the Cougars have scored right before halftime and then on either the second-half kickoff or one of their first three offensive plays.

The streak started against Permian when Durham caught a 46-yard touchdown pass late in the first half, then Rhodes scored on a 79-yard touchdown pass on the second play of the second half.

Against Midland High, Cooper trailed 14-7, but scored on a Chris Cherry 11-yard run to tie it, then a Rhodes 9-yard touchdown reception with less than 30 seconds left in the half. Rhodes then returned the second-half kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown to put Cooper comfortably ahead.

And against San Angelo Central, the Cougars drove down the field and scored on a Rhodes 31-yard touchdown reception with just eight seconds left in the half. He then took the first play of the second half 58 yards for a touchdown to make the score 45-14.

"I don't know how many times we've done that or score in one or two plays," Durham said. "This offense is so explosive."

And the most explosive of the three is Rhodes, whom Durham says is the best running back in the district.

"Dominic carries us," Durham said. "He gets things going. I'll get into it when I see him bust a long run. A lot depends on how Dominic gets into it. If he starts slow, we start slow. (Permian's) Ja'Quay Wilburn was supposed to be the best back in the league, but I'll take Dominic. And he can catch the ball, too; he might have the best hands on the team."

Those would probably belong to Durham, who stands out at wide receiver. The 6-3, 185-pounder is fast enough to outrun defenders and tough enough to take hits and keep coming.

And when he trots out to his position and sees he'll be single-covered ... well, let's just say he doesn't mind it.

"I'm competitive, and when I see that I'm thinking that there's nothing that guy can do to stop me," Durham said. "I have the attitude that when the ball is in the air it's mine. Either I catch it, or it's going to be incomplete, because he's not intercepting it.

"That might sound a little cocky, but you have to be to make big plays," he said.

The guy that gets Durham and Rhodes the ball is Anderson, who is having a fine season as the Cougars' signal-caller. In 16 games as the starter, Anderson has thrown for 2,427 yards and 22 touchdowns. The yardage ranks him as the district's 10th all-time leading passer, and the touchdown passes have him ranked seventh on the district's all-time career list.

The numbers the three have put in the last 41/2 games are staggering, and they all go back to a loss: 27-22 to Midland Lee on Oct. 11. And don't think the Cougars wouldn't enjoy a rematch in the quarterfinal round of the state playoffs.

"Our focus is on Amarillo High," Rhodes said. "But if we did play them, it would be a good game, because we're a lot better now than we were then. We're ready for this playoff run because we know we can play with anybody."