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Call to arms: Collin County Rattlers reflect, reload after unsettling finish
BY Matt Welch, mwelch@starlocalnews.com
For nearly four months, the Collin County Rattlers may as well have ruled the state’s semipro football landscape.
Taking the Minor Professional Football League by storm, the Rattlers piled up lopsided victories in droves, ascending the national semipro rankings with each growing week en route to both division and conference championships.
But for one evening, the Rattlers proved mortal.
“When we saw what kind of talent we had come on board, our expectation was to win a championship,” said Tim Smith, Collin County head coach. “Obviously we fell short of that, but we accomplished all of our other goals.
“… I still feel like we’ve built a solid foundation for 2013 next season but unfortunately, our ultimate goal wasn’t realized.”
That goal was a league championship, the one thing that has eluded the Rattlers since their inception.
It was a task that steadily came into focus as the season wore on, with the first month of the MPFL calendar serving as a mere hors d’oeuvre for a divisional matchup against the Cooke County Outlaws, the reigning the Texas United Football League Champions.
A 28-0 shutout win followed, instantly lifting the Rattlers into the state’s upper echelon of semipro teams.
“For the coaching staff, we needed a game like that just to see where we ranked among the better teams in the state,” Smith said. “We dominated that game from start to finish in every facet and that was when we really jumped up there in those national rankings.
“… When we dominated Cooke County, we knew what we wanted would be there for the taking.”
The Rattlers carried the momentum from there, besting teams with a staggering efficiency on both sides of the ball.
Quarterback Terry Barber mounted an air assault that worked harmoniously with receivers Quinten McKinney, Mario Limas and Alex Martinez – any of whom were capable of eclipsing 100 yards on a given night.
Defensively, the Rattlers were in vintage form, surrendering just 7.3 points per game and shutting out five regular-season opponents. The steady quartet of Brandon Hearne, Rod Richardson, Romell Terry and Mike Turman owned the line of scrimmage and alongside T.J. Wade, Eddie Morgan and Shelton Thigpen, headlined one of the state’s most formidable units.
“When we were at our best, it was fun to see,” Smith said. “For the most part, it’s easy to coach a team with this talent. Seeing them grow from week to week and seeing them bond was where things felt really special for us.”
An unblemished 10-0 regular season prefaced a pair of lopsided playoff wins over the Texas Knights and West Texas Drillers to set up a championship bout with the Stampede, a team riding its own wave of momentum after an 0-2 start to the season.
And while the national rankings might have painted the third annual Shanklin Bowl as a matchup of David vs. Goliath-esque proportions, the roles were reversed in a 48-21 victory by the Stampede on June 23.
“You’ve got to give a lot of credit to the Stampede,” Smith said. “They have probably the best quarterback at this level that I’ve seen and they had a solid game plan … We didn’t play our best game and at that level in a game like that, you need to.”
All that exemplified trademark Rattlers football over the past four months was nowhere to be seen against North Texas. Plagued by defensive miscues, a lack of depth, errant blocking and miscommunication in the passing game, Collin County found itself in the shoes of the 12 opponents who preceded the Stampede.
Smith hasn’t wasted any time in laying the groundwork for the offseason. He's currently looking to expand the coaching staff with a litany of positional coaches. Personnel decisions will become clearer in the coming months, between various players mulling retirement in the buildup to preseason workouts in September.
It’ll mark the start of a clean slate, plus the chance to make good on the many lessons learned from the setback against the Stampede as the hunt for that elusive championship continues.
“[I hope we learned] we’re not invincible,” Smith said. “That was the feeling going in, that no one could beat us and that we were the best in the nation. I envisioned us winning that game by three scores but a game like that shows that it takes your best every night to win.”
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