2020 Record: 1-0
After years of seeing Cy Woods effortlessly put up 40-50 points on the scoreboard, I'm still trying to get used to seeing them take part in low-scoring, defensive struggles. This game was a brawl. As I stated in the preview, Kingwood's new head coach, Cale Melton, was the defensive coordinator at Highland Park and he enjoyed massive success at one of Texas's most storied programs. Coach Melton had his team ready to play and the Mustangs certainly made the Wildcats earn this victory. I have a feeling that the Wildcats will need to prepare themselves to get into some ugly games this year. With the triple-option, they have just the playing style to muck things up for their opponents.
At halftime, I spoke with Braden Barrett's father and we had a brief discussion about the merits of non-district play. Yes, it is nice to go into district play with as good of a record as possible. Coming in undefeated would be ideal! But, the time for teams to work on certain plays, fine-tune the gameplan, identify players they want in their rotations, etc. comes in non-district games. Cy Woods has usually adopted the "let's work on this and that" approach, but with the roster turnover, this year is a little different.
With a roster largely consisting of players who would be experiencing varsity football for the first time, it would probably be important for them to start off with a victory, especially with this one team called the Katy Tigers up next on the schedule. I hear Katy's pretty good.
Woods got the win, and with it, a little momentum on their side heading into next week's showdown against one of Texas's premier programs.
What Happened
The Wildcats' first points of the season came on a three-yard touchdown run by Trayse Holmes with 6:42 remaining in the first quarter. The Cats were lucky to have been in a position to score because they were dangerously close to committing a turnover inside the five-yard line, however. Connor Morris took a pitch and looked as though he had a path to the end zone, but a hard hit resulted in him fumbling the ball, which flew about ten feet in the air before Ty Van Atta swooped in to recover the fumble.
The defense followed up by forcing a three-and-out and a poor punt gave the offense good field position. A personal foul penalty on Kingwood was tacked on to a first-down catch by John Niles to put Woods in the red zone and two plays later, Dylan Cormier found Niles again for a 14-yard touchdown pass.
Kingwood had a scoring threat aided by a pass interference call and then a 43-yard pass put them at the Cy Woods three-yard line. However, the Wildcats snuffed out the threat as Chris Agnew forced a fumble and then the ball rolled about 20 yards before Carson Cox picked it up to give Cy Woods the ball.
End of 1st Quarter: Cy Woods 14, Kingwood 0
The Mustangs got on the board on the final play of the first half thanks to a two-yard touchdown run from Nick Bernell, capping off a 99-yard drive. Well, that wasn't an ideal end to the first half of the season.
Halftime: Cy Woods 14, Kingwood 7
There was no scoring in the third quarter. Cy Woods got the ball with a little over a minute to go in the third and they proceeded to put up the only points of the second half thanks to a 15-play, 78-yard drive capped off by a four-yard rushing touchdown by Trayse Holmes with seven minutes left in the fourth. The defense followed that up by forcing a three-and-out and the offense turned the ball over on downs on their next drive, but they ran 5:30 off the clock, leaving the Mustangs with just 36 seconds to make up a two-score deficit, which did not happen.
Final: Cy Woods 21, Kingwood 7
Ground
The Wildcats ran for 218 yards in this game and make no mistake, they had to earn every single yard. Seeing Trayse Holmes run up the middle ten plays in a row may seem like complacent playcalling, but first, you never show your hand in game one. Second of all, that's the faith that Coach Neill has in Trayse. He's the feature back in this offense and he's one of the best overall players on this team, so he stuck with Trayse knowing that he could break off a big run at any time. And he had a very impressive run in the third quarter that, unfortunately, had some of the yardage taken away due to a penalty. Trying to tackle Trayse definitely took its toll on the Mustangs' front line and the Wildcats just chipped away and the two/three-yard gains eventually turned into four/five yards.
And third, Wildcat A-backs only had eight carries combined and J.J. Williams and Charlie Bain were the only two who caught a pass. Seems to me like no one in that group has truly separated themselves as locks to start just yet.
A new-look offensive line acquitted themselves well, especially with two former defensive linemen in Jacob King and Duke Leonard getting starts. Cameron Yoakem, a junior, got the start at left tackle, and Micah Batchman, another junior, also saw some playing time. The onus will be on Braden Barrett and Ty Van Atta to help lead this young and promising group. This looks to be one of the largest offensive line groups at Woods since when Ty Dendy was around in 2014.
Air
Dylan Cormier made sound decisions through the air and the Wildcat receivers made good, solid plays. There was probably only one throw from him that I would have considered "forced." In five third-down passing plays, three of his completions resulted in first downs. DC floated one up to Ryan Faulk in double coverage and Faulk made an excellent catch over two Kingwood defenders in the third quarter.
Defense
Giving up a 99-yard touchdown drive right before halftime is inexcusable. Fortunately, this is the only thing I can complain about on defense in this game. Defense is the phase of the game where there has to be constant and consistent energy, whether it's coming from the eleven men on the field or from the sideline. The energy from Woods on that drive just didn't seem right to me.
Other than that, and some late-game stat-padding through the air, the defense came up with stops when they needed to get them and stifled Kingwood. Well, to be fair, Kingwood has a new coach and a new offensive system that is being installed, but you still have to stop them. When the Mustangs were threatening to score late in the first quarter, Chris Agnew stepped up to deny them. Kingwood had two opportunities to tie the game in the third but they could only manage to get one first down on each drive before being forced to punt. They bought time for the offense to recollect themselves.
The Wildcats allowed only one run of ten yards or more in this game and held the Mustangs under three yards per carry. Jonathan Mendoza managed to throw for 212 yards, but he needed 54 yards at the end of the game to reach that total. Also, Mendoza only completed 50% of his passes, so a brand-new secondary of Brenton Frizell, Josh Jones, Will Price, and Ryan Estay did a solid job in their first varsity game.
Fourteen Wildcats recorded a tackle in this game and sophomore linebacker Dylan Rogers led the way with ten. Ryan Estay, a sophomore safety, finished second with seven; Tyler Sherrill also had seven. Chris Agnew had five tackles, 2.5 of which resulted in a loss of yardage, and forced a fumble. Two sophomores leading the team in tackles is pretty significant; Cy Woods has a very talented sophomore class in the system and we will be hearing plenty from Dylan and Ryan in the coming years.
Special Teams
Michael Fernandez hit all three of his extra-point attempts, had a 34-yard punt, and missed a 26-yard field goal attempt because he kicked it right into his blockers. Ryan Faulk appears to have taken on the punting duties and got a couple of nice rolls on his punts, both of which landed inside the Kingwood 20-yard line. He also returned a kickoff 14 yards.
Game Summary from Varsity Wires
Man of the Match: Trayse Holmes
Four straight 100-yard games for Trayse Holmes dating back to last season. With 35 carries, he demonstrated that he can handle a heavy workload and the Wildcats will need every carry out of him this season. He'll probably have 200 carries and a very real opportunity to run for 1,000 yards this season.
Sub-Varsity Results
Freshman Gold (1-0) 26, Kingwood 0
Freshman Cardinal (1-0) 50, Kingwood 14
JV (combined) 27, Kingwood 24
Looking Ahead
The Wildcats will wrap up their non-district slate with the Katy Tigers. Yes, the Katy Tigers. Kickoff from Cy-Fair FCU Stadium is scheduled for 6:00 on Saturday, October 3.
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