All in all, Bill Peebles was pleased.
Cathedral High School, which entered the 2019 football season with major questions in multiple areas, had significant success in Peebles’ second season as head coach. The Irish won multiple big regular-season games and were acknowledged as one of the state of Indiana’s best teams.
That made the season memorable and a step in a positive direction.
“Overall, it was a team-oriented year and it was a really good year,” Peebles said.
The Irish finished 9-3 – their most regular-season victories in a decade – against one of the toughest schedules in the Midwest, finishing the regular season second in the state in Class 5A.
None of that changed just because their final game didn’t go their way.
“We thought it could be a rough year,” Peebles said. “There were a lot of unknowns. We just didn’t know. Our kids stepped up. They won games we were big-time underdogs in. They competed well in games and had opportunities to win in the others.”
The Irish opened the postseason with back-to-back convincing victories – 38-14 over Terre Haute South and 42-12 over Decatur Central – to win the Class 5A, Section 13 title before losing to defending Class 5A state champion and No. 1-ranked New Palestine, 35-10, in the regional championship.
The Irish led the regional 10-7 at halftime before New Palestine – which won the 2019 Class 5A state title – scored 28 points in an eight-minute span in the second half.
“Even in that game, we had opportunities to control momentum at a few points,” Peebles said. “They were able to seize momentum and they got it done. Simple as that.”
The Irish in 2019 lost just two regular-season games – to Cincinnati Elder (38-31) and Cincinnati St. Xavier (41-37) and beat Louisville Trinity, 28-7. They also beat Class 3A state champion Bishop Chatard, 31-21, and Class 6A state runner-up Center Grove, 14-9, in back-to-back games in the last two weeks of the regular season.
Peebles said the key to the ’19 regular season was the ’19 offseason.
“Our offseason program was really good this year,” Peebles said. “Transition years are hard and first to second year you usually see a big jump. I think that happened this year. I think our senior leadership was excellent. There was never a lack of effort. We had a great locker room environment.”
The Irish entered the season with multiple unknowns. Four new starters on the offensive line. Three new wide receivers. A freshman tight end. Offensively, only the starting quarterback, running and right tackle returned.
“Other than that, everybody was new,” Peebles said.
The defense was a similar situation with multiple new starters on defense. That meant a lot of unknowns on all three levels of the unit, and Peebles said overcoming unknowns and coming together as a team helped define the season.
“I thought the senior leadership was outstanding,” he said. “The kids liked each other, played hard for each other. We were in multiple situations where we could have folded and didn’t. Overall, I would say it was a very successful year. You always want to win that last game, but we took steps in the right direction.”
Key to the Irish defensively in 2019: senior Shiloh Means, who will play collegiately at Penn and who Peeble said “played free safety as well as anybody we’ve had play it.” Also key to a defense that bonded and improved throughout the season was senior linebacker Quinton Cannon, who provided key leadership to the unit.
Senior tackle Tex Elliott emerged as a leader of an offensive line that entered the season with just one returner who had played what Peebles called “a meaningful offensive down.
Senior quarterback Orin Edwards capped his career by completing 140 of 255 passes for 1,844 yards and 25 touchdowns with seven interceptions. He finished as Cathedral’s all-time leader in passing yards. Running back Daylen Hall rushed for 1,040 yards and seven touchdowns on 129 carries and junior Camden Jordan caught 37 passes for 740 yards and 14 touchdowns.
“It’s more about the process,” Peebles said. “The day I got here, I kind of came with a tag line: ‘It’s not what you get from Cathedral football; it’s what you become.’ Everybody comes here because they want a ring. But it’s not a right. You have to earn it. You have to be good. And you have to be lucky.
“I’ve been on a lot of good teams that weren’t lucky and didn’t win. I’ve been on some pretty average teams that were lucky and did with that last game. It’s about the process of building kids as humans and young men. If you just keep doing that day by day, week by week, year by year, good things are eventually going to happen and those state championships are going to come.”