2005 Cedar Park Timberwolf Football

Game-by-Game Narratives
2005

EPILOGUE

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”

Not only does that Dickensian phrase describe a tumultuous Europe of an earlier time, it is an apt fit for the 2005 Timberwolf football season.

On the one hand, three shutouts of teams that, outside those losses to Cedar Park, went a combined 21-5, won one district title, played for another, and included two playoff teams.

On the other, three disappointing losses to teams that went a combined 8-19 otherwise.

To further comb it down, the T’wolves beat a team that was otherwise undefeated and ranked 11th in Texas at the time, yet lost to a team that wouldn’t win any other single ball game until the final night of the season. In the final analysis, our record was probably where it ought to have been; it just got there by a strange route. Three of the wins could easily have been losses, and three of the losses could easily have been wins.

There was an unattractive win in a very close call with an unimpressive Killeen Ellison team. And at the other end of the spectrum, there was the proverbial “quality loss” in a great performance against 15-5A runner-up Pflugerville. Search your memory and be honest... which game did you come away from feeling better about- the Ellison win, or the Pflugerville loss? And overall, Cedar Park played well in a 35-21 loss to 16-5A runner-up Hays on the road. The Rebels ended up 9-1 on the year, their only loss by one point in the closing seconds of the season finale to Westlake.

Truly a Jekyl-and-Hyde season. But that’s the nature of a fresh new team with a brand new coach and an entirely new system for which he had nearly zero time to implement. Overall, I'd rate 2005 a success..

One interesting and obscure fact is that this team, of all seven Cedar Park varsity football squads through the school’s brief history, had the lowest average margin of defeat in its losses. They never lost by more than 14 points. This is not as trivial as it might initially seem. Our two best teams (the 2001 17-4A and 2004 15-5A champions) lost less often, but when they did lose, they were usually blown out. The average loss margin in 2001 (three losses) was 21.3, and that’s even factoring in a one-point playoff loss: that team lost two regular season games by 42-0 and 35-14 margins. Last year’s Region II Finalist team lost three games by an average margin of 17.3. Our team this season logged an average defeat margin of only 11.2.

And speaking of odd twists, how about these?...

The passing game looked to be a great strength in the opener, as junior quarterback Travis Watson tied the school record for most TD passes in a game, with three. Who thought there'd be just two more the rest of the season? In his four most accurate games, Watson was a very good 34-for-62 for 431 yards with 3 interceptions and 5 touchdowns, for a 55% completion rate. In his four least effective, he went 9-for-38 for 93 yards, 2 picks, and no scores, for 24%. Watson ended the season on an upward trend, though, and looked much more comfortable throwing the ball later in the season.

Wingback/halfback Matt Raesz turned in a prodigious scoring performance early on, with two touchdown catches against Heights, a TD fumble recovery against Hays, and a big 53-yd TD run against Ellison, and turned in a six-yard-per-carry average against Westwood, all in the first four games of the season. He never saw the end zone again, and only totaled twenty more rushing yards the rest of the year, mainly due to the emergence of Tyler Smith as one of the area’s best rushers.

The defense showed a vulnerability to the downfield passing game against Hays, Westwood, and Stony Point, and yet the pasing D completely obliterated a very respected McNeil aerial attack midway through the season, and was the biggest reason for the huge upset win over Leander as they utterly disassemble the Lions' centex-best passing game on that glorious final night of the season. After suffering through a five-game stretch in which they averaged surrendering 219 passing yards per contest, the defense made great progress, posting in their final four games of the season an average passing-yardage-allowed figure of just 130. Very impressive, especially considering that two of those four games were against great passing teams.

Fullback/linebacker Brandon Haug’s first touch of the season was a 67-yard touchdown, but he would end up with only 23 yards per game the rest of the season. Haug’s contribution to the team would turn towards the defensive side of the ball, where his phenomenal performance, laced with critical hits, interceptions, touchdown returns, and even timely big punts, assured him of joining Albert Johnson and Riley Iverson on the short list of the greatest linebackers ever to play for Cedar Park.

Tyler Smith looked to be almost an afterthought early in the season, with just 47 yards in the opener and 138 through three games, and getting only three carries in the whole first half in the loss to Round Rock. But he’d score seven touchdowns and rush for an impressive 560 yards in the last three games of the year, joining Rupert Edwards, Korey Washington, and his own brother Quinton to become the fourth Cedar Park player ever to rush for over a thousand yards in a season. The T also caught sixteen passes for 198 yards and two more touchdowns, ending up as the team’s leading receiver for the season, as well.

But there were several points of great consistency on this Timberwolf team.

The run defense was solid, with only the area’s top rushing team – Pflugerville – cracking the code. The Gang Green held three of the top seven area rushers (Stony’s Cameron Bell, McNeil’s Cameron Rodgers, and Hays’ Amadeus Waters) to an average of 61 yards under their individual per-game averages. There was rarely any yardage up the middle against Cedar Park, where pre-season All-Centex Trey Hawkins, a veteran of the state’s third-ranked 5A defense in 2004 and that team’s phenomenal state playoff run, anchored the defensive front, and if you got by him, you ran right into the incomparable Brandon Haug at middle linebacker.

Defensive end Tim Knicky was superlative all year long. Not only did he average 40.5 yards-per catch on two huge passing plays against Hays and Pflugerville, opposing offenses came to design their game plans around the task of avoiding him. It didn’t matter- he usually found the ball carrier anyway. Knicky ended up setting the school record for sacks and along with Haug became one of the lynchpins of the Gang Green defense. He scored a critical touchdown recovering a Pflugerville fumble in the end zone. Whenever you found yourself saying, “Man, do we need a big play on defense right now!” chances are Tim Knicky came through on the next snap.

About Daniel Dilworth, barely enough can be said. The all-purpose player set school records for total return yardage – punt, kickoff, interception, fumble – and seemed to always be in on the biggest plays of the game. He set the school record for career interceptions, and for longest punt return. He quarterbacked the team in several critical moments, such as the clinching drive in the win over Georgetown, throwing the second-longest pass in school history (a 67-yard touchdown to open the scoring in the 24-0 win over McNeil) and leading the team in his first and last start at quarterback for the huge upset of Leander. Perhaps lost in Dilworth’s long list of contributions is his vital but overlooked role as holder for the amazing Wes Wagener.

Wagener’s incredible string of 63 consecutive extra points may be a state record. It is limited to 63 only by the fact of his coming graduation. Who knows how long he could have gone? Wagener ended his career kicking the field goal that clinched perhaps the biggest upset win in school history on the final night of the season. He owns eleven of the fourteen school placekicking records we’re tracking. He is nothing short of the best kicker in school history.

This year’s Timberwolves are the only Cedar Park football team ever to win its final two games, and when you add the outstanding performance in a losing effort to Pflugerville in game eight, and the fact that the defense ended the season with five straight quarters of shutout football, the program is riding a three-game streak of season-ending momentum unequaled in school history.

This is much to look forward to in the immediate football future. Chris Ross is a proven winner. The team returns much talent in 2006. Tyler Smith will begin the season as the best running back in Central Texas next year. A veteran quarterback with nine starts will return, and Coach Ross’ system will be fully implemented.

Timberwolf football fans should be scrambling for their calendars. Cedar Park’s next great campaign in the National Sport of Texas is just around the corner.

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