Playing for a state title is nothing new for Cedar Hill head coach Joey McGuire. After all, his Longhorns beat Houston Cypress Falls, 51-17 in the Class 5A Division II championship game back in 2006. Cedar Hill has had a nice run of success since then but this weekend, the Longhorns will make their first appearance in the title game since '06. This time around, Cedar Hill will square off against an unbeaten Katy squad with bragging rights in 5A DII on the line once again. The Tigers will be the fourth nationally-ranked foe the Longhorns have faced this year, a fact definitely not lost on McGuire and his talented group. Here's more from the Cedar Hill head coach.
What are your thoughts heading into the matchup with Katy?
McGuire: We're honored. No doubt we've had some good years, but it's great to be back in the state game and have the opportunity to play such a storied program in the Katy Tigers.
Katy has quite the tradition in 5A. What are your thoughts on this year's unbeaten Tiger team?
McGuire: Well, the running back for Katy, the Taylor kid, he's an animal. You can see he's kind of a throwback to those old Nebraska backs. We're going to have our hands full. They do a great job up front on their offensive line and defensively, they've been limiting people to around 210 yards of total offense that they've given up. So it's going to be a war. I feel like that our team is peaking at the right team. They've gotten better and better every week, so we're excited.
Cedar Hill currently sits at 11-4 after losing some tough games against quality foes early in the season. Talk about how those losses helped galvanize your team and make this run to the state title game possible.
McGuire: Well, it's been a question that's been asked a lot and we knew we had a tough schedule. This will actually be our fourth opponent that has been ranked in the top 10 in the nation at some point of the season. And so, we've played some good football teams. While the losses were tough but we lost our leader against Allen, we lost our running back, Jared Rayford, to a knee injury. That was really tough to overcome more mentally. He was such a big part of the voice in the locker room, the voice on the field and he was a great football player. Those two games without him, it took some guys stepping up and finding what kind of role they were going to have to fill whenever he was out. Each week we've gotten better at filling those roles.
As has always been the case with your teams, you have strong balance on offense and no shortage of weapons. Talk about having so many options on that side of the pigskin.
McGuire: We do [have a lot of weapons]. That's something that I feel like three have already committed, but we feel like we've got four Division I receivers. We've got a Division I quarterback. We moved a kid over, one of our running backs, our junior running back was banged up last week. So he didn't play. He'll be back, Larry Hill. I think he'll play Division I football somewhere. Bobby Jackson came in and rushed for 172 yards after starting on defense all year long. He's a kid that's going to play college football at some level. So we have a lot of weapons and it's one of those deals that we try to be balanced and we're going to try to make Katy defend the entire field on Saturday.
Unlike Katy, your team has had to win some close games this year. Do you feel that might give you a bit of an edge, especially this time of year?
McGuire: It's one of those deals and Katy hasn't had that, but the thing about them is they had it the other day and they responded. They're a great football team, so they're in a little bit difference case. Like our '09 team, we weren't tested until we played Abilene and then all of a sudden, we were in a game and we didn't respond until a little bit too late. With this group, we've been in some tough games. I said this earlier, I really don't think there's a team maybe in the nation but I don't know if there's a team in the state that could go on with our schedule and gone undefeated. Katy might be that team, but DeSoto was undefeated and played Allen last week and got beat. So it's one of those deals. We have had such a tough schedule and our kids, they're not going to be intimidated by a lot. A lot of these kids have played in Cowboys Stadium before so they're not going to be in awe. We know we're going to be on a bigger stage than we've ever been before.
The talent your team has on offense with the likes of Laquvionte Gonzalez, Quincy Adeboyejo and Larry Hill among others has been much discussed. But talk about how strong your team is on defense.
McGuire: Defensively, our numbers are I would say skewed somewhat because the first three weeks, not only did we play good opponents but we played terrible defense. We were in a 4-2-5, which is a little bit different than what we've been in. We've always been an odd front team. So we went back to that against DeSoto. Since then, each week we've starting playing better and better defense and we're playing some of our best defense right now in the playoffs. Now, our team has always been a team that we create a lot of turnovers. That's something that we continue to do and something that we hang our hat on. Now we haven't got them all, but I believe we've forced through an interception or a fumble, 40 turnovers. That's something that's huge for us.
Is this week kind of bittersweet for any coach in that every coach in the state wants to be here, preparing to play for a state title. But this week also marks the end of the season because win or lose, there will be no practice next week or any more games to prep for.
McGuire: It is kind of bittersweet because we've got over 50 seniors and man, I love these guys. They've been such a big part of my daily routine for the last four years. So it's tough. We even said let's have a great Tuesday because this is the last Tuesday they're going to have together. I think that's going to be a huge motivator for them. It's something that I'm really proud of. They're leaving a great legacy for this program. The younger guys are really understanding what it means to be a Cedar Hill Longhorn.
