By Tom Behrens
The Taylor Mustangs won their first game of the season, 39-21 over Fort Bend Austin, Thursday at Rhodes Stadium. The game marked the return of Joe Sheffy to a head coaching role.
Sheffy took over for coach Trey Herrmann, who the school district placed on administrative leave Tuesday. Sheffy had previously served as head coach at Mayde Creek. He was an assistant on the Taylor coaching staff when the district appointed him to take over the football program.
Here are the coaches’ comments about the situation and the game.
Sheffy on playing for a new head coach
“As the head coach I’m going to do the best I can to make sure I do what’s right for these kids,” Sheffy said. “It (the appointment) was pretty much a surprise.”
As for the reactions from players, Sheffy said the “kids are resilient. They bounce back.”
The situation Sheffy inherits with the Mustangs is similar to the one he faced during his Mayde Creek tenure in the 1990s. When Mayde Creek first opened, it was a Class 4A team, but moved up to Class 5A, the largest classification at the time. Today, Taylor and Mayde Creek are in District 19-5A, .
“Taylor right now is a lot like Mayde Creek in the 90’s, and why it’s easy for me to relate over here,” Sheffy said. “We went to the playoffs four out of my six years at Mayde Creek. We were up there with the big boys then. It was like six years we had the smallest enrollment of any 5-A school in the state.”
Sheffy is originally from Herford, Texas where he played high school football. He played college ball at Southwest Texas State University (now known as Texas State University-San Marcos). He has coached high school football for 41 years with stops in Pearland, Gainesville, Alvin and KISD.
“Trey (Herrmann) played for me at Mayde Creek in 1997 (and later as a coach) ran my offense, my defense, off-season, pretty much what Taylor does now,” Sheffy said. “I’m going to tweak a couple of things and go on.”
Sheffy stepped down at Mayde Creek thinking he wanted to be in KISD athletics administration.
“But I like kids a whole lot more than adults,” Sheffy said. “Whenever they gave me the opportunity to come over here (Taylor) and be the offensive coordinator, I jumped on it.”
Sheffy on the mood in the locker room before the Fort Bend Austin game
“We just told them that we have to overcome things, play our game, control the ball and let the defense get after it, and they responded,” Sheffy said. “This is all about the Taylor Mustangs. The program will be here whether coaches are here, kids are here. We just have to get better as a program and finish things.”
Sheffy will continue to call the offense plays.
Will football things change? “On the same page with Coach Herrmann’s plans,” Sheffy said.
Sheffy on the win against Fort Bend Austin
Ean Beek scored five touchdowns as the Mustangs defeated Fort Bend Austin.
“I’ve got a heck of a tailback (Ean Beek),” Sheffy said. “He is really special, and we’re big up front. Last week he had 30 carries for 310 yards. (Against Fort Bend Austin) he had five touchdowns.”
In Thursday night’s game against Fort Bend Austin, Beek scored first in the first quarter. He scored in the second quarter on a 40-yard breakaway run, and added a third TD on a six yard run.
In the third quarter Beek picked up his fourth touchdown with a three-yard plunge. He scored his fifth touchdown in the fourth quarter with nine minutes left in the game.
“He carries the ball 35 times a game,” Sheffy said. “Next day he’s good. He’s truly amazing.”
Houston Baptist University would like to add him to their running backs next year.
“Whoever wins the recruiting battle is going to get a winner,” Sheffy said. “He can block, he can catch. He’s the best safety in the district if we let him play safety.”
Sheffy called out others who played key roles in the win. On the defense, kudos go out to defensive end Max Wright, defensive back Ben Montgomery and defensive end Braedon Mowry. Wright was nominated for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl that will be played in January in San Antonio.
“Max (Wright) played well; the entire defense played well,” Sheffy said. “I think maybe they had 120 yards offense total.”
Taylor led 27-7 at the end of the third quarter. Chris Rivers scored from seven yards out for Austin with less than a minute left in the quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Moise Tezzo gave the Austin fans something to cheer about with a 97-yard kick return. Tristan Reven added a touchdown in fourth quarter with two minutes left in the game.
“We were in ‘mop-up’ time,” Sheffy said. “Our twos (second-team players) scored, and they returned the kickoff for a touchdown. We went with our twos again and one of the kids (Cameron Hudson) fumbled trying to get extra yards, and an Austin player scooped it up and scored. Cameron had a great game up to that point. Everyone had a chance to play, everybody deserves to play, and we learn from that. He won’t fumble again; he did his pushups on the sideline.”
In addition to the 39 points on the scoreboard, Taylor had two touchdowns called back, and missed two field goals.
“There are things we have to get better at,” Sheffy said. “Our offensive is young and they are getting better. We play Katy next week.”
Ryan Hookstra added a Mustang touchdown on a 56-yard running TD.
At quarterback this year for the Mustangs is 6’4” sophomore Austin Smith.
“He struggled a little bit early, nervous,” Sheffy said. “We didn’t have to throw the ball very much. He was 4 of 7 for 74 yards, getting better every week.”
Lots of errors and mistakes last week…
“We didn’t correct all of it, but we took care of some of it,” Sheffy said. “We didn’t roll the ball back to the quarterback like we did the week before. We had two turnovers. Defensively we played lights out, did really well. We have to get where we are playing mistake free. The people we play … it’s tough enough to win whenever you do things right.”
“I knew they were big, atypical of big teams, guys that can move.”
Daniel Schreiber, the Fort Bend Austin coach, said the Bulldogs tried “to pack the box a little bit. Two plays we should have made would have made it a closer ball game. They are pretty physical.”
Schreiber described the two plays his team missed that helped turn the momentum in Taylor’s favor.
“In the second half there was a tip pass, third down and long, and we’re fixing to get off the field,” Schreiber said. “We undercut a route, tipped it away, right to a Taylor receiver who took it for a touchdown. On another play we had the Taylor quarterback sacked, and he just spun out and ran down to the one yard line.”
Schreiber said his team kept fighting and that, at the end of the day, it was something that would help his team.
“I think this game is going to end up being a positive for our kids because at half time we were probably dead in the water, and came back out. Defense got a few stops. Offense got one in the end zone. We forced a fumble which we returned for a touchdown with two minutes left in the game. We had a kickoff return for a touchdown.”