Cypress High School Coach Rick Feldman is the Orange County football coach of the year. He is pictured in the locker room at the school on Wednesday, December 15, 2021. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

By Steve Fryer | sfryer@scng.com | Orange County Register

UPDATED: December 21, 2021 at 10:59 a.m.

Cypress was rolling along well enough in the early weeks of the season.

The Centurions were 3-1 going into their final nonleague game against Capistrano Valley, thanks in large part to a dynamic offense that featured returning Empire League player of the year Dylan Eldredge at quarterback.

Eldredge suffered a season-ending knee injury in the Capistrano Valley game. So Cypress had to retool its offense, not an easy task nearly halfway through the season. The Centurions went on to go 5-0 in the Empire League to win the league championship and advanced to the CIF Southern Section Division 4 semifinals.

For maneuvering his team through the challenges and taking his team to a league title and a 10-3 record, Cypress’ Rick Feldman is the Register’s Orange County coach of the year.

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Cypress High School Coach Rick Feldman is the Orange County football coach of the year. He is pictured in the weight room at the school on Wednesday, December 15, 2021. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Feldman, 56, played football at Cypress. He became the school’s head coach before the 2014 season.

The Centurions opened this season with an overtime loss to Foothill, which finished the season 10-2 and ranked tied for No. 9 in the county Top 25.

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“That turned out to be a very good loss,” Feldman said. “The next week we beat San Juan Hills at their place and started feeling good about ourselves.”

Eldredge’s injury, Feldman said, “was a punch in the gut for everybody.”

Feldman and his staff of assistant coaches — Jeff Crooks, Dan Falt, Terry Thompson, Efrain Valdez, Eric Smith, Nick Buras, Matt Doyle, Justin Parcells and Andrew Moreno — moved Matt Morrell from receiver to quarterback as league play was about to begin.

“We were hoping we’d go 3-2 in league and sneak into the playoffs,” he said. “Then Morrell had a huge game in our win over Tustin. All the players stepped up and all the assistant coaches stepped up.”