BY GREG LUCA AND MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
It took until the midpoint of the season, but McAllen High coach Kevin Brewer finally found a true No. 1 quarterback.
For the first five games of the season, quarterbacks JR Cortez and Ruben Rodriguez split reps under center. But in the past two weeks, Rodriguez has stepped forward as the Bulldogs’ clear starter, throwing 32 of the team’s 34 pass attempts.
“It’s consistency. Consistency in practice. Consistency in games,” Brewer said. “And that’s always a huge deal when you rotate two quarterbacks. You want one of them to kind of take the reins of the offense, and Ruben has done that the past two weeks.”
For the season, the senior Rodriguez has completed 40 of 79 attempts for 539 yards and five touchdowns against two interceptions. Cortez, a sophomore, is 16-of-41 passing for 178 yards with a touchdown and four picks.
Rodriguez had his most productive game of the season last week against La Joya Juarez-Lincoln, completing 8 of 16 passes for 138 yards and two scores. Brewer said Rodriguez did a good job of managing the game and checking the offense into the correct plays.
Rodriguez was also solid in the run game, carrying 7 times for 37 yards and a score. On the season, he has 220 rushing yards with two touchdowns.
“Confidence is the biggest thing,” Brewer said. “He was a little unsure of himself and the offense early on, because he played very, very sparingly last year. So this is his first real time that he has to be out there and be the guy. I think now he’s gained confidence, and it’s showing.”
EARNING HIS SPOT
When La Joya Juarez-Lincoln put sophomore Albert Martinez into the varsity lineup for the first time against La Joya Palmview three weeks ago, he could barely figure out where to stand.
“The first couple of plays, I was lining him up whether he was on the line or off the line,” Juarez-Lincoln coach Tommy Garcia said. “But after that, he was playing like if he was a veteran.”
A receiver and change-of-pace back with quickness and elusiveness, Martinez has become a valuable weapon in the Huskies offense.
He set new career bests in every category during last week’s loss to McAllen High, carrying six times for 94 yards and a score while catching two passes for 58 yards.
“He’s a player,” Garcia said. “He has very good vision, and we really like what we see from him.”
Juarez-Lincoln came away with a 35-19 loss but scored three touchdowns in the second half and racked up 405 yards of total offense.
Garcia said the Huskies were hurt by a questionable call on a would-be touchdown pass that was ruled an interception on simultaneous possession in the end zone.
“Any time you have over 400 yards on offense, that’s a good night,” Garcia said. “I was hoping for a little bit more in the red zone, but I think we did enough offensively to win.”
COMING UP SHORT
Though PSJA High (2-5, 0-4 in district) has lost four straight games to open 31-6A play, coach Steve Marroquin maintains a positive outlook on the 2016 campaign — a one-win improvement from the previous year, despite fielding 20 underclassmen and just three senior starters.
“We were telling the kids the other day that we’re just four, five plays from being 5-2 instead of 2-5,” Marroquin said. “We believe there’s something to take away from every single game, and we have to continue working hard to get better.”
The Bears are averaging 353.6 yards per game, second in district behind PSJA North. But PSJA has been unable to fully take advantage of that production, given the occasional missed assignment, Marroquin said.
It’s been magnified in losses to PSJA Southwest (20-17) and Edinburg High (20-14, OT).
“It’s execution,” Marroquin said. “It’s a missed block here, a missed tackle there. Just little things that we stress to our kids everyday. We keep harping on them. We’re better off than we were before, but we still have to get better.
“I’m a firm believer that repetition helps, and our kids are staying out there and getting after it. I still believe we could finish the season out strong.”