By TIM HYDEN, CJ Correspondent
After Somerset High School officially named Rob Lucas as its head football coach on February 18th, the speculation began as to where Somerset’s former head coach, Jay Cobb, would land to continue his coaching career. That speculation can now end.
Never one to shy away from a coaching challenge, Cobb has accepted the job of rebuilding the football program at Knott County Central, where he took the Patriots to the playoffs in four straight seasons in the ‘90s. In 1996, Cobb led Knott Central to their last winning season with an 8-3 record. A year later, he left to become the head football coach at Somerset High School. That was a decision that changed the path of two football programs in very different ways.
At Somerset, Cobb had immediate success. In just his second season at the helm he guided the Briar Jumpers to the State Semi-Finals and a 10-win season. This marked a drastic turnaround for a Somerset program that had gone only 13-28 in the four seasons prior to Cobb’s hiring. He was then able to sustain that success over the next decade. After going 4-7 in his initial season, Cobb was able to rebuild the storied program and weather the cyclical dips in talent that inevitably come with a school as small as Somerset High School. He never let another Briar Jumper team drop below 5-6, which was their record on three occasions. In the seasons which followed, Cobb always had them poised to contend once again, going 9-3 in 2003, 12-2 in 2005, and 14-1 this season under Robbie Lucas.
In his 11 seasons at Somerset Cobb’s team went 87-48, won four region titles, and came within one step of the State Championship game on three different occasions: 1999, 2005, & 2006. And, of course, he was the head coach of the 2009 Briar Jumper team, which eventually finished as state runners-up, until he decided to resign shortly before the season over issues relating to player safety.
Meanwhile, back in Hindman, the Patriots have struggled. In the 12 seasons since Cobb’s departure for Somerset, Knott County Central has averaged less than two victories per season. The Patriots’ record of 22-101 over that span also reflects the efforts of five different head coaches as Knott County Central struggled to recapture the competitiveness that Cobb had established there in the mid 90’s. In five of those seasons the Patriots were held t a single win in each.
To his coaching colleagues, Cobb has long been recognized as an offensive genius. His teams have put up prodigious numbers at SHS, with several of them averaging over 40 points per game. The most renowned offensive star of the Cobb era was John Cole, who now stars at Vanderbilt University. In Cobb’s offense, catching passes from Ross Deaton and Chase Hall, Cole caught 69 TD passes, and totaled 4,981 receiving yards for his career—both all-time career records for the state of Kentucky.
Cobb has also been lauded by his colleagues and the parents of his players as being a man who found a way to get the best out of his student-athletes—a quality that many feel has gone underappreciated by the community outside of the Somerset football program.
Cobb will now get the chance to put those coaching skills back to use as he returns to a community that is more than ready to welcome him back to town. It gives the coach a unique chance to rebuild a program that others had let fall into disrepair in his absence. The Patriots compete in District 8 of Class 2A.
