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Strong foundation: Boyd poised to build off perennial playoff berths
By Richard C. White, rwhite@starlocalnews.com
All things are possible with a strong foundation.
While the McKinney Boyd football team saw its season end with a bi-district loss last week to Jesuit, it nonetheless marked a consistent standard of success established by the Broncos.
"I thought we had a good year," said Don Drake, Boyd head coach. "It's disappointing that it ended the way that it did, but overall we consistently competed in a pretty tough district. That says a lot for our kids and their work ethic and how far we've come in just a short time."
"The fact that we've done it three years is what you want out of your program," Drake said. "It's starting to show our kids that that's what we expect and they now understand that; that's now the standard. Making the playoffs is what we expect to do every year and we're going to do what is necessary to make that happen."
With the playoff foundation established, Drake knows the next step is deep postseason runs, something the Broncos haven't done.
"Hopefully we can start a trend of winning playoff games," Drake said. "We've advanced to the third round, the second round and got beat twice in the first round. Hopefully we're going to get to a place where we're consistently winning playoff games. Making it three years in a row is pretty significant, but now we've got to push beyond that and strive to advance further."
As the team prepares to move forward, the Broncos will do so without senior running Back Bryan Driskell, who set a litany of school records during his varsity career.
Among Driskell's most impressive stats were two separate games in which he surpassed 330 yards rushing, in addition to more than 5,000 total rushing yards and over 400 points scored. Driskell also ran for a program-record seven touchdowns in a single game earlier this season.
"I don't know if you fill those shoes," Drake said. "[Driskell has been] been a huge part of Bronco football. He accomplished a lot in his three years as a varsity player. We're definitely going to miss his leadership and we'll miss what he contributed in terms of his overall high level of play."
Boyd, however, is retaining several key starters, including quarterback Curtis Ladd.
"I feel good about where we are," Drake said. "We got our quarterback back, which is a big plus. We have Dedrick Scrivens who had quite a few snaps as a sophomore this year. We expect he'll be moving to the backfield for us. He's a talented kid and I feel good about that aspect of our team. We do have to find some offensive linemen, which we pretty much do every year."
Drake is especially excited about the defensive depth the Broncos will have with several returning starters.
"Defensively, we played a lot of young faces and I thought we had a pretty good year," he said. "We started two sophomores and a junior up front, a junior at linebacker and a junior corner. We feel like we have some great kids coming back at those key spots, which gives us a lot of depth next year."
Overall, Drake is content with the makeup he currently sees for next year's team.
"I feel pretty good about both sides of the ball," he said. "A lot of kids got some very valuable experience. We just have to find the few other pieces of the puzzle from the next group coming up from JV and that'll happen. Those pieces will come together. The last few years we've had some solid sub-varsity groups."
As for which wins of the season meant the most, Drake cited the Sept. 14 matchup against Garland (a 31-21 Broncos victory) as quite satisfying.
"That was a big one," he said. "We had competed in that district for the last couple years and they were the one loss we had in district play the last two years. For our kids to go over to Garland and beat them was pretty significant."
Drake also cited Boyd's Oct. 12 game against Plano West in which the Broncos ran away with a 55-28 victory.
"The Plano West win to start district play was huge," he said. "That was a big one and we won that one pretty convincingly. It was the first time we'd competed back with Plano schools in this district in a couple years. The last time we were in this district we didn't beat a Plano school in the entire two years we competed against them."
Not to be forgotten were subsequent wins against Plano and McKinney.
"Beating Plano was also important," Drake said, "as was beating McKinney, your cross-town rival in a district ballgame to lock down a playoff spot. I don't think you can get any bigger than that."
As Boyd looks forward to the promise of a new season, Drake is encouraged by the character he saw this year, something that could be a big asset come 2013.
"Our kids never balked at anything we asked them to do, going back to the start of offseason last December," he said. "They came prepared every day and were willing to be coached and coached hard and they responded well. They fought and it showed with their great character. The group of kids we have gets better and better every year, and we're definitely looking forward to next year."
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