Photo illustration by Steve Muscatello Cooper Taylor was named the 2017 All-Journal Offensive Player of the Year. Taylor ran for over 2,000 yards and compiled 38 total touchdowns for Wabasso on its way to the state title game.

WABASSO — Wabasso’s Cooper Taylor finished this season with more than 2,000 rushing yards, 38 touchdowns and a Class A state championship appearance.

He’s also the unanimous pick for the 2017 All-Journal Offensive Player of the Year as voted on by The Journal’s sports staff.

It’s been quite the season for the running back, and the numbers and success the Rabbits were able to have this year don’t lie. Taylor finished a standout senior year with 2,153 rushing yards, 38 total touchdowns, 22 receptions and 323 receiving yards.

Transitioning from wide receiver last season to running back this season wasn’t as big of an adjustment for Taylor as one might think. Taylor has played running back before and has shown he can pick things up quickly.

Taylor picked up the running back position again this season in place of the 2016 All-Journal Offensive Player of the Year and former teammate Mitchell Fulton, who graduated this spring. Both solid running backs, but both players had differences when it came to picking up yards and making plays.

“Mitchell could make you miss a tackle by running through an arm tackle,” Wabasso coach Joe Kemp said. “Cooper’s got a tremendous jump stop and a jump cut. He can change directions on a dime, and that allows you to make some mistakes inside the box with your blockers. You can’t teach that.”

Taylor said that the thing that drives him the most is the friendly competition between his brother Colton and himself on the field.

“He helps me stand out,” Taylor said of Colton. “We have a different personality and different drives than everyone else. It’s not that we want to be better than everyone else, but we want to be better than each other. It’s more of a family competition, but we help support one another.”

Taylor said that he feels his speed is his biggest asset when it came to making big plays on the field. He also said that he could sense where the hits were going to come from and knew how to avoid tacklers.

For anyone that was able to watch Wabasso play this year, Taylor’s speed was on display each game as he racked up more and more yards as the season progressed. Taylor also showed off plenty of awareness and field vision, which resulted in plenty of big rushes down the field and several touchdowns, too.

Kemp said that Taylor could pick things up quickly and that he learned something new every time he took the field.

“He’s a hard-nosed kid — he’s a winner, “ Kemp said. “He likes to compete. Even if you’re playing checkers, I think he’d like to win. But he likes to compete, and he’s a learner every time he gets out on that field. He’s learning as the game goes on. He likes to win and people follow him with that.”

Kemp also said that he considered Taylor to be a true gamer and that he soaks up as much information as he can.

Taylor said that he really enjoyed this year and said how close the team was all season long. He said that after last year’s loss to Minneapolis-North in the Class A playoffs, the team had a chip on their shoulder and a drive to win this year.

“We really came together as a team this year,” Taylor said. “We went into the season with some unfinished business. We played with a chip on our shoulder, and we worked really hard over the summer. We just had a drive this year.”

Taylor said that there was no one word or way to describe the team and their success this year, but he did say that the team was very energetic and that the year was a lot of fun.

This football season was certainly a lot of fun to watch, especially if you had the chance to watch Cooper Taylor making plays for the dynamic Wabasso offense.