Cocoa Tigers Impressed but Do Not Fear Colerain

Cocoa Stadium Home of 5 Time Florida State Champs

The Cocoa Tigers biggest concern is hurricane Irene, the challenge of playing one of Ohio's top football programs is the challenge they are eager to face the Colerain Cardinals at Colerain Stadium aka "The Cage" on Sunday at 3pm.  The game will be broadcast on ESPN.

The team plans to fly to Cincinnati Saturday and hoping that Hurricane Irene doesn't hang around until then so they can face Colerain.  They are looking forward to the trip and wishing hard that weather doesn't rob them of the chance to compete.

Senior quaterback, Maurice Pugh responded quickly and descisively.  "Oh yeah,"  when asked if he was looking forward to the challenge.

"Colerain is pretty good.  They're big.  They run the veer offense. They have a couple really fast guys in the backfield.  They have a good football team."

Cocoa has won Florida State Championships the last three season.  They traveled twice last season in similar pre-season challenges.  They defeated Thomas Jefferson of  Jefferson Hills Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh at Woodland Hills High School on the road last season, 43-7.  The team traveled to Texas and beat Abilene High 24-21 last season for two of its 14 wins, including the state championship game against a very good, Glades Central, 14-13.

Tigers Prepare for Showdown With Cardinals

Coach John Wilkinson is in his seventh season at Cocoa.  He owns a 70-10 record, while winning three straight titles.  The Tigers roster of 31 players include 12 returning starters with six on offense and six returning on defense.  In spite of the small roster size by Colerain's big school standard, the Tigers have no players playing both ways.  The school has 950 students in grades 9-12.

"We've very fortunate.  In the first year when we won it (state championship), we had 27 players on the team and nobody went both ways.  So it's one of those things where we train them.  Now, with injuries obviously our backups are our starters.  Our running back will back up the secondary.  Our secondary will back up our running backs," Wilkinson said.

Wilkinson is a graduate of the University of Florida after graduating from Merrit Island High a few miles from Cocoa.  Wilkinson did not play collegiately.  "No ones was looking for 5'10" offensive guards," Wilkinson said.

Wilkinso and his team have done their homework.  They know that Colerain hasn't lost at home since 1999.  They were watching Colerain's 24-23 loss to St. Xavier in the Region 4 semi-final game last season outside the coaches office prior to practice on Monday.

Coleain coach Tom Bolden flew down for Cocoa's spring game against Dr. Phillips High from Orlando.  Trey Griffey the son of baseball great Ken Griffey Jr. plays defensive back for Dr. Phillips.

"Watching Colerain on tape, they are disciplined well coached and a good football team," Wilkinson said.

Tarean Folston, who wears number 10, is the featured running back in the Tigers' wing-t offense.  Folston is a junior started last season as a sophomore.  He has offers from 20 schools, including Cincinnati. 

Folston has been also offered by Florida, Florida State, Notre Dame.  Folston was hesitant to name the schools, so Wilkinson helped, "He is trying to be humble which I like but he has a lot of offers."

Folston rushed for 1,247 yards and 13 touchdowns last season.  He knows that Colerain star linebacker and Michigan recruit will be trying to stop him but doesn't plan to backdown.

"He'a a big guy but you know everybody is blockable.  Everybody makes mistakes.  I'm going into this game hoping he makes some but if he doesn't it is my assignment to block him on certain plays. I'm just looking forward to playing ball," Folston said.

Pugh is moving to quarterback after starting after starting at wide receiver last season. The 6' 175 athlete has traveled the country as an AAU basketball guard.  He is hoping his senior season running the wing-t will create interest in his football career at the collegiate level.

"We runs some spread out of the wing-t.  I'm concentrating on Colerain," Pugh said.

Linebackers, Michael Ferguson (52) and Grady Redding (5) are returning starters for the Tigers' 3-5 defense. 

"Colerain has a real good fullback and two quarterbacks that came from a rival school is battling the JV quarterback," said Ferguson, who is a Miami Hurricanes fan and wears the number of former Hurricane and his favorite player, Ray Lewis.  "They like to run but they'll pass if they have to.  They run the same offense as Merrit Island.  I've watched tape from last year and a lot of the players that impressed me have graduated.  I havn't seen a lot of their new players."

Ferguson 6' 0, 205lbs has played basketball and ran track but is concentrating on football.  He has drawn interest from some colleges.  He would love to play for Miami or the Naval Academy.  Temple University has shown interest.

Redding 5'10' 175 Mike linebacker has studied the Colerain offense, "They run the ball a lot.  They like to get to the edge with their speed.  If we contain, we'll be alright."

"They remind me very much of Merrit Island," said Redding, who has started on the last two state championship teams. Redding has offers from Georgia Southern, Illinois State, Eastern Illinois, UMass, Jacksonville State and Bethune Cookman.

Redding is a big fan of former Red outfielder Deion Sanders.

Florida High School football doesn't start the regular season for a week but the play rivals in the area this week.  The storm has already forced the high school "Classics" which are treated as scrimmages to be advanced to Wednesday as Irene is expected to blow through late Thursday or early Friday.

The Colerain game as a Kickoff Classic does count as a regular season game.  Cocoa has 11 weeks to play 10 games.  One bye is already built in so they will get two weeks off during the upcoming season.

The Colerain will be the Tigers first competion since its May 27th spring game against Dr. Phillips.  Fall scrimmages are prohibited by Florida State High School Association rules.