The Copper Basin Cougar football program is headed in a “good direction and off to a good start,” after wrapping up the 2024 season, Head Coach Brett Graves said last week.
Graves looked back on the Cougars’ last game Friday, November 1, against Sale Creek’s Panthers and the progress he’s seen since taking over the program at the beginning of the season.
“We won everywhere but the scoreboard,” he said of the contest at Sale Creek. The Cougars totaled 244 offensive yards, including 72 through the air and the other 172 on the ground, to Sale Creek’s offensive output of 208 yards.
Copper Basin controlled the ball for 61 plays while limiting Sale Creek to 25, and the Cougars outpaced their hosts 17 first downs to 10.
The Cougars opened the game with a 20-play, 14-minute drive that ended with six points. By the end of the game, Sale Creek had posted a 40-21 win but did so on special teams plays thanks to a fumbled Basin punt they recovered, a kickoff return for a touchdown and a punt return for a touchdown. Graves noted Sale Creek only scored 20 points against the Cougars defense.
Graves was especially proud of the seniors who played so hard in the game. “They wanted to go out the right way,” Graves said.
After an opening schedule filled with high powered opponents, Graves was happy with the progress he has seen. Copper Basin posted shutouts over opponents in two of its last three outings, Bethel and Lookout Valley, as the Cougars recorded their two wins in a 2-8 season. In those games, the Cougars were “playing teams our own caliber,” Graves said.
The Cougars started a season filled with numerous challenges to overcome from the very beginning.
Graves came to Copper Basin with a “completely new defensive scheme” of gap control. “We had to do a lot of learning (and) we made strides toward the end of the season,” he said.
The push on the offensive side of the ball was also completely different for Copper Basin. “I am a run first guy,” Graves said. “I like to make everything look the same while running three different things.”
Because of the size of the Cougars, “We have to make the defense cover the whole field,” Graves said.
Adjusting to Graves’ all-new Run-Pass-Option was not easy.
Starting running back Hayden Deal, who had been expected to carry a big load, only played seven games, carrying the ball 52 times for 200 yards. Graves praised Lucas Hughes who stepped up and gained 208 yards on 32 carries. Still, the Cougars offense “wasn’t as proficient as we’d like to be,” Graves said. The total offensive production for the year was 1,752 yards; 1,108 rushing and 644 passing.
To say the Cougars faced formidable odds in the early going would be an understatement. For example, Graves took a team of 16 players to face the Black Knights in Robbinsville, North Carolina, a place where a lot of AAA schools have fallen to defeat.
Friday night after Friday night, the sheer number of players on the opposing sidelines dwarfed the Cougars.
Graves is already working to create, “A favorable schedule where we can compete” next season as he tries to find the right balance.
He’s also working hard to get more players interested from among the 160 students at Copper Basin to draw from. “If we get 30, we can be competitive,” he said.
One key to that success is Graves’ belief that football has to be fun. That is already happening. “Football has become fun again at Copper Basin,” he said. He credits “a really great senior class that made it enjoyable” and a community that went “above and beyond” to support the program.
“It takes a village, and that’s what you see here,” Graves said of the alumni, school system officials, various businesses and restaurants that contributed and supported the team. He pointed to alumni night as reflecting a special outpouring of support.
Besides, Graves believes the hardest part of building the program is behind him. That hardest part came right after he was offered the job. “I was eager to start and didn’t have a key to the building,” he said.