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Depth, veteran legacies leave Cats clawing for 2011
BY Matt Welch, mwelch@acnpapers.com
One year older and one year wiser.
The continuity and experience gained from a rollercoaster 2009 campaign were two of the foundations for which the Plano Senior football team steadily paved the road with in 2010.
The net result was better regular season turnout, tabbing three more wins than the year before, but a bi-district playoff exit ultimately crashed the Wildcats’ postseason festivities.
“It was a very rewarding season,” he said. “It was one of those seasons that went up and down, but I was very proud of the way our kids fought back to overcome the three road losses and were still able to get into the playoffs.”
A rough-and-tumble grind through District 8-5A was predicated on an unbeaten non-district campaign for the Wildcats that featured wins over Garland Lakeview Centennial, Irving MacArthur and Mansfield Legacy.
It was during that stretch that the Plano defense steadily molded itself into one of the area’s most formidable, allowing just 11 points per game behind the play of veterans like senior Collin Brence, Matt Johnson, Arthur Skinner and Blair Burns.
Offensively, the Wildcats’ identity was established as well.
Senior Murat Kuzu and junior Kevin Merrill emerged as a potent one-two punch out of the backfield and any questions regarding the team’s inexperienced receiving corps were dashed from the onset, with a balanced group of targets dealt senior quarterback Connor Michelsen’s way.
The brunt of 8-5A steadily caught up to the Wildcats, though.
Three road defeats decorated Plano’s loss column, including a back-to-back stretch against Flower Mound and Flower Mound Marcus that left the Wildcats on the outside of the playoff picture with three weeks to go in the regular season.
A loss to Allen accounted for the Wildcats’ only other district loss in a game that steadly shifted gears for the Plano offense. Hampered to just 13 points against the Eagles, Plano would average 37.5 points the rest of the way through 8-5A.
“At first, we had some young, inexperienced players who hadn’t been in roles like that,” McCullough said. “But our offensive line really gelled and we got in some good run sets and were able to establish a running game.”
The other side of the ball had its shining moments as well, including a 38-0 shutout of Plano East and a 33-6 drubbing of offensively-sound Hebron; the latter of which proved to be perhaps Plano’s most important win of the season.
“We didn’t even realize the impact of that game at the moment,” McCullough said.
The ramifications would become evident as the season unfolded, with Plano trailing the Hawks by one game entering the final week of the regular season. With the final playoff spot at stake, Plano had to upend city rival Plano West, while needing Marcus to put away Hebron to secure the last postseason spot by virtue of its head-to-head tiebreaker over the Hawks.
Plano held up its end of the deal, beating the Wolves 27-17, but it required some late theatrics for the Marauders to edge Hebron in a game that had more than just the Marcus faithful taking notice.
“What made that game so special was the electricity going on through the stands,” McCullough said. “While we were playing West, everybody was listening to the Marcus-Hebron game … When they heard Marcus converted that two-point conversion and won, it was an electricity going throughout the stadium.”
An emotional night for all involved, Plano rallied late for the second straight season to secure the fourth playoff seed. The Wildcats’ season would only be one week longer though, with unbeaten District 7-5A champion Coppell spelling Plano’s demise, 23-6.
“With the playoffs, you’re never really happy with the way it ends unless you win a state championship,” McCullough said. “But we played a very good team in Coppell.”
Emotions ran high for other reasons last Saturday as the senior-heavy Wildcats took the field together for the final time.
“I’m really going to miss this senior group,” McCullough said. “It’s a great group with great leadership and character, and on top of all that, they’re great football players. I really look forward to what they do in the future and I think they’ll make a positive impact on society.”
Admitting that he’s got his work cut out for him this offseason, McCullough turns his focus to molding the next batch of Wildcats for 2011.
While new faces will be seen at the likes of quarterback, with sophomore Richard Lagow, and throughout the secondary and linebacker corps, Plano does have its depth from this season to fall back on as more than enough underclassmen gained valuable experience for next year.
And fortunately for McCullough, he sees the example set by his seniors this season as a perfect blueprint to angle his underclassmen entering the months ahead.
“Life is full of lessons, good times and bad,” he said. “But you’ve got to get up and keep going. That’s what I’m going to remember about this group is that they did what it took and they scratched and clawed, and while we had to depend on someone else, we did what we needed to do.”
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