By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
You don’t have time to finish the first question. New Cooper head football coach Adam Begley and his players have heard it plenty already. They can finish it for you.
So how do replace all those players who have gone on to college in the last three years, you start to ask, not to mention losing the only head coach your school has ever had in its 18 years of football?
This is not the first time they’ve been asked, after all, that is THE question – the only question — for this Cooper team that made it to the Class 5A state championship game in two of the last three years.
And then after last season, watched record-setting quarterback Cam O’Hara move on to Western Kentucky after three exciting years and more than 11,000 passing yards in Union.
“We’re not rebuilding, the foundation is set,” says Begley, who moves up from freshman head coach and is a battalion chief in the Florence Fire Department, where he’s a 20-year veteran.
“I’ve heard the talk,” senior safety/wide receiver Corey Freihofer says. “A lot of games we’ll be the underdog . . . we kind of like that.”
“The best athlete on our team,” Begley says of Freihofer. Not an exaggeration to say he might be the best athlete on any team in Kentucky as the defending state champ in the pole vault and a top wrestler.
“The speed,” Freihofer says of the biggest carryover skill his pole vaulting offers the 6-foot, 185-pounder. “And then there’s the leverage you learn.” Freihofer, the third in his family to lead Jaguar teams after older sisters Kay and Liz helped Cooper hoops to back-to-back Sweet 16s, is comfortable taking the lead for this team.
After a physical scrimmage Friday at Lloyd, will this be a new-look Cooper team that hangs its hat on defense? “Not necessarily,” Freihofer says. “We’ve got a lot of threats on offense.”
Start with Zach Kostopoulos, a sophomore who succeeds O’Hara at quarterback.
A slim 160-pounder, Zach says “I don’t think about it, we just play the game.” And that game is . . . ? “Next man up,” Zach says. He just happens to be that man, a team leader by virtue of the position he plays.
“He’s a smart kid,” Begley says of the quarterback who’s among “a bunch of newcomers.”
“Stay consistent, keep working,” Kostopoulos says, “we just gotta’ step up,” of this team that returns just four starters on each side of the ball.
But a Class 5A team that’s not exactly tiptoeing into this season with three games against 6A schools including the opener on the road at the new Christian County High School in Hopkinsville as well as early games against rival Ryle and Campbell County along with state 4A power Highlands.
This is where Begley comes in as a first-year head coach. “Randy Borchers was a huge mentor to me,” he says of the founder of the Jaguar program who has moved on to the Kenton County Schools as director of student engagement and as a member of the KHSAA Board of Control. “He helped us in the transition.”
Helping Begley is his other career. “Leadership is leadership,” he says as the man in charge of the Florence Fire Department every third day, all 24 hours. “How to communicate with individuals, how to get the best out of them. I’m a planner. I don’t like surprises. That’s why we spent 45 minutes Thursday going over our pregame.”
Now that planning could pay off if he has the athletes and coaches to get the job done. There are four coaches back from last year’s staff with Cooper’s new athletic director, Tyler Morgan, his defensive coordinator. Also back is Dan Maher, whose son, Keegan, is one of the departed stars with 4,000 yards rushing, now at Georgetown.
Don’t downplay the offense, Begley says. They are five deep at wide receiver after Freihofer led by returnee Talon Johnson and an offensive line that should be a strength with Carson Clark, Manning Dawson, Trevor Johnson and Brayden Neal. Leading the defense up front are Cole Suesz and Owen Flamm with outside linebacker Parker Tveten.
Of how the first-year head coach is doing thus far, wide receiver – and the coach’s son Aiden, a slim 6-foot “130-ish” pound sophomore – says “He’s doing great, it’s not different at all. He’s always been a coach for me, he treats me just the same.”
Now Begley has an entire Cougar varsity team to coach up.
COOPER JAGUARS
2025 SEASON: 8-4 record, lost to Scott County, 55-34, in second round of Class 5A playoffs.
STARTERS RETURNING: 4 offense, 4 defense.
DISTRICT: Class 5A, District 5 with Boone County, Conner, Dixie Heights, Scott.
HEAD COACH: Adam Begley (first season as head coach).
2026 SCHEDULE
Aug. 21 – at Christian County, 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 28 – at Highlands, 7 p.m.
Sept. 4 – RYLE, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 11 – at Campbell County, 7 p.m.
Sept. 18 – at Louisville Manual, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 25 – at Conner, 7 p.m.
Oct. 2 – DIXIE HEIGHTS, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 16 – SCOTT, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 23 – at Boone County, 7 p.m.
Oct. 30 – SIMON KENTON, 7:30 p.m.