Rebuilt Apex takes 6-0 record, newfound confidence into rivalry game at Apex Friendship

By Kyle Morton, HighSchoolOT producer

First-year Apex football coach John Mozerka closed his team's film session on Wednesday with a reminder.

It's been 18 months since Apex last played a game at archrival Apex Friendship, and in that game the Patriots immediately jumped all over the Cougars, taking a 31-7 lead into the halftime break on their way to a 38-14 win.

A lot has changed since then. Apex finished the spring 2021 season 0-7, but Friday night against Apex Friendship is an opportunity to start this season 7-0. Sandwiched between the two seasons is a 5-5 campaign from last fall, the final season with Britt Morton at the helm of the program as head coach.

One of those fall 2021 wins was an emotional home drubbing of Apex Friendship, the Cougars' second win over the Patriots since Friendship opened and the first time since Friendship fielded a varsity team with seniors.

"That was a really big win for us as a program," senior receiver Trey Barbee said.

"They've been beating up on us for a couple years and they came into that game thinking they could beat up on us," senior receiver Jack Welch added. "That really changed the tone in that rivalry."

The rivalry has largely been dominated by Friendship since the newer school opened, and its football program quickly began an upward trajectory while Apex sputtered to winless seasons.

The Patriots are characteristically solid once again this year as they have been throughout head coach Adam Sanders' tenure. They sit at 3-3, but losses to Holly Springs and Panther Creek have thrown a wrench into their conference title hopes.

For Friendship, Friday night is an opportunity to not only spoil Apex's record, but to get back into the conference race.

"It's kind of the things you dream of as a kid," Welch said. "It's the rivalry you want... They think they're coming back for a revenge game, but we haven't forgotten the past couple years... One year of beating them is just not enough."

Rebuilding Apex football has been a long-running, multi-year project in which Morton and Mozerka both played major roles.

In 2008, Apex went 10-5 and lost to Wake Forest-Rolesville in the third round of the playoffs. The Cougars have not had a winning record since then.

Morton returned to his alma mater in 2018 to get the process rolling. He oversaw a three-year stretch from 2018 to spring 2021 in which the team won just two games, but the culture shift was underway.

"Coach Morton is a great guy," Barbee said. "He led and he set the expectation."

"Coach Morton really led a rebuild program," Welch added. "Really tore it down and kind of built it from the ground up. He gave us some of the key pieces to start building off of."

Mozerka moved from California and spent time as the offensive coordinator on Morton's staff before the transition was made at the head coaching position.

"Apex is a very special place," Mozerka said. "Having the unique small town feel to it, and the support that you have from the alumni.. it's a very special place."

"The transition between Morton and myself has been so smooth," he added. "He did all the hard work. He's the one that changed the culture. That is the hardest thing to do in a program. So when people say, 'You're rebuilding it,' no. It was already rebuilt, and the train just kept rolling."

The result has been a new-look offense that is both explosive and efficient, averaging 41.2 points per game. Running back Ian Bright is approaching the 1,000-yard mark. Junior quarterback Chase Klingemann is producing and taking care of the ball. Barbee and Welch operate as the team's top two receivers, and Barbee's ability as a big-play threat is well-utilized.

The diversity of Apex's offense is a big reason for its success. The Cougars make use of many different run concepts, RPOs and different looks in the passing game to make themselves difficult to prepare for.

"One thing that's unique to us is that nothing's off the table," Mozerka said. "We will run every type of scheme and concept and blocking scheme and trap scheme. Everything might look the same, but it's not the same every single play... It's very hard to game plan against us. We are not one-dimensional in what we do and we spread the ball around everywhere."

It's an obvious strength for any team that can do it, but it takes high-level communication and understanding of the game on the part of the players to properly execute it.

"The amount of information that these guys now have... We've been able to build and build and build and the playbook is just getting larger," Mozerka said. "Because we have such smart football players here... we're able to throw a lot at them."

For the players, the building of the playbook was done in a sensible way that they say allowed them to build on the infrastructure already in place.

"When [Mozerka] was offensive coordinator, he started building off the playbook we already had," Welch said. "He built off of it, and when he became head coach, he didn't scrap what we had... That was one of the best things about that transition, everyone was able to keep the progress that we had made."

That progress has resulted in a 6-0 start, which means that the Cougars are one win away from guaranteeing that elusive first winning record since 2008. The record is also reflective of the challenges that still lie ahead of them.

The rivalry game against Apex Friendship looms this week, and to contend for the SWAC league title, the Cougars will have to go through Middle Creek and Holly Springs in the two weeks after.

"We just need to make sure we don't look too far into the future and mess up what we have right now," Welch said.

The team is taking things one day at a time, but its head coach is clear about what the goals are for the conclusion of the season.

"These guys know the expectations are very clear at the beginning of the year," Mozerka said. "Deep playoff run this year. Not next year, this year."