Unfinished business.
It can nag at you like that hangnail throbbing in your shoe. Or fuel sleepless nights through the off-season.
Whatever. The Cochrane High School Cobras don’t play that. Last season’s 35-28 loss to Cardston Cougars in the provincial high school 2A quarterfinal is history.
That was then. This is now.
The Cobras have a clean slate and enter this football season no differently than in seasons past.
“Our goal every year is to win a provincial championship,” Cobras co-head coach and offensive coordinator Rob McNab insists at the team’s fall training camp opening day Aug. 24 at Cochrane High. “That never changes.”
So when left behind on a frosty November evening at Calgary’s Shouldice Park, the Cobras just looked ahead.
“We’re in pretty good shape,” McNab observes, looking over the school field at 45 players in full equipment running drills with position coaches. “They (players) are excited. It looks good.
“What we do with the program is obviously make sure the younger kids have that experience at the junior-varsity level and then they just step in. They have to play right now. We have some great players here.”
The kids include receivers like Eric Nusl and Evan Perrault and lineman Justin Sambu. Cochrane Bantam Lions quarterback Tae Gordon, who started for Zone 2 (Big Country) at the 2014 Alberta Summer Games, will play running back and quarterback for the Cobras this season.
“Tae Gordon’s going to play,” McNab states. “He’s not sitting and watching Cody play, either.
“He’s going to play some receiver, some running back, safety.”
Along with his other chores, Gordon was returning punts at training camp.
Cody Stevens is “the” guy at QB this season. The senior pivot is fielding university calls from across Western Canada, with queries coming from, among others, Simon Fraser University, Alberta, Manitoba and Calgary.
“He’s terrific,” McNab says of his senior QB.
Look for senior and Team Alberta player Mac Chaisson to resurrect Josh Gingrich-Hadley’s role as a battering-ram-style running back, along with his reliable work at linebacker.
On the other side of the ball, co-head-coach and defensive coordinator Bruce O’Neil is hard at it, sharpening his crew for the 2014 Rocky View Sports Association season. He is also as sharp as ever when reminded of losing graduating players like all-star lineman Dale Cummings (Montana State University-Northern), receiver Kyle Moortgat (University of Regina) and tailback/slotback Justin Mount (University of B.C. rugby).
“Don’t even remember those guys,” he cracks. Who are they?
“But, seriously, we wish them all the best.”
He turns to his current Cobras crop and is as enthusiastic as ever.
“We have a really good group of kids. On the defence its all about team,” he says of his strategy that has made Cobras the team to beat in Rocky View. “We just talk about team defence. Run to the ball. Everyone know the rules. Don’t think, react. Be ready to play before the ball is snapped.”
The Cobras continue working into game shape in an Aug. 29 exhibition against St. Joseph’s of Grande Prairie before leaving Sept. 3 for exhibition play in Texas against Groesbeck High School.
Their Rocky View Sports Association season kicks off Sept. 13 at Airdrie’s George McDougall High School.
