“I’ll be honest, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what our win-loss record will be,” he said. “I didn’t think about making the playoffs. At that point, we hadn’t won a game yet and my thought was just how to get them to believe they can.”
But that doesn’t mean Drake is surprised that his Broncos (9-3) will play the ninth-ranked Copperas Cove Bulldawgs (10-2) for the Class 4A Division I Region II championship at 7:30 p.m. today at Baylor’s Floyd Casey Stadium.
“My challenge to them was, ‘Play hard and give me your best effort,’” he said. “I tell the kids, ‘I can’t guarantee that if you give your best effort you will win, but I can guarantee that if you don’t give your best effort you won’t win.’
“Once they figured out they could win, they haven’t looked back. They’ve given their best effort and that’s what’s gotten us where we are.”
And where they are is quite simply amazing, considering that Boyd is a new school playing only its second football season.
The Broncos finished 0-10 last year under Drake, who served as quarterbacks coach at McKinney North prior to taking the Boyd job. Throughout the 0-10 campaign, Drake never let his team focus on the losses or make excuses. Instead, he put high expectations on his players and demanded that they give their all every week.
The Broncos finally saw the fruits of their labor in Week 2 this season, with a 31-6 win over Denton - which beat Boyd 62-6 last year.
“There were a lot of factors there,” Drake said. “I had got to work with this team in spring ball and had a real offseason with them. And there was a lot of maturity coming back this year. We had the building blocks for success, and there was a lot of anticipation when we took the field this year.”
Copperas Cove coach Jack Welch also isn’t surprised at Boyd’s turnaround.
“They were starting with no seniors last year,” he said. “Basically it was like a junior varsity team playing a varsity schedule. It would be like me playing my JV. My JV was undefeated this year, but they wouldn’t do that playing a varsity schedule. I doubt they’d beat anybody.
“But now Boyd is reaping the benefits of that. They have 11 starters on offense and 11 on defense all back. And they’ll be good again next year because they won’t lose much this year.”
One player who looks to become a well-known name in the next few years is sophomore quarterback Daryn Alves, who has rushed for 2,417 yards and 30 touchdowns on 315 carries. He has completed 83 of 160 passes for 1,034 yards and nine touchdowns.
“They are scoring a lot of points, and the reason why is their quarterback,” Welch said. “He’s hard to bring down. He’s a running back put at quarterback.”
Welch noted that his team has seen similar quarterbacks in Killeen Shoemaker’s Andre Smith and Waxahachie’s Boomer Collins.
“What concerns me about him is he’s elusive,” Welch said. “He’s short (5-7) but he is strong and breaks tackles or carries three or four tacklers with him. He plays with his heart.”
Drake is quick to point out that while Alves is talented, he has other weapons.
“He is a definite catalyst,” Drake said. “But he’ll be the first to tell you his success is because of the guys he plays with. We preach the team concept here, and there are a lot of guys who are big contributors.”
That point was brought home last week when Alves was held to 51 yards but the Broncos still defeated Marshall, 21-14.
Running backs A.J. Jones and Joseph Robinson have gained about 400 yards each and receivers Jeff Fuller (verbally committed to Oklahoma) and Cameron Masser have a combined 699 yards on 57 catches - seven for touchdowns.
“He likes to thrown on the run,” Welch said. “He’s got a big receiver, so he’ll just throw it up and let his guy go get it.”
Like Cove with the Houston-committed tandem of quarterback Robert Griffin and running back Troy Vital, the Broncos will run a lot of play-action plays out of the shotgun and will run out of various sets.
Griffin and Vital have a combined 2,702 rushing yard, and Griffin has passed for 1,133.
It would seem that Cove, the 4A Division I state runner-up last season, would be a huge favorite against up-and-coming Boyd, but Welch isn’t looking past tonight’s game.
“We respect every opponent,” he said. “We expect every team to give us a tight battle. We study the film, study alignments on every team. You have to prepare for each team the same. Who would have thought Ennis would have beat Waco? That’s a great example that you have to be prepared to play and play your best every game.”
And Drake says his Broncos won’t be intimidated, either.
“Our guys have a lot of confidence right now,” he said. “We know that Cove has an excellent quarterback and tailback that are very explosive. We have to do a good job containing them.
“But we don’t know how we are going to match up until we take the field. We know they have some speed, but we’ve seen speed and it’s not going to be a shock to them.”
mhood@temple-telegram.com
