Saturday mornings in the fall, John Logan Dockins’ alarm clock sounds off at 5:30 a.m. Sore and tired, Dockins rolls out of bed and heads out back to tend to the family farm of corn, tobacco, beans and cattle.

“I’ll play a game on Friday night, then I’ll be cuttin’ the back on Saturday mornin’. I don’t just do it because I want to,” he said about the routine. “I gotta help my dad out. I like it. It’s enjoyable sometimes. Sometimes it can be a pain in the butt. But I mean, my dad’s also understandable about it. He’s not gonna kill me or nothin’, he just needs some help. It’s really tiring, but it’s somethin’ that’s gotta be done.”

Dockins works at home like he’s worked the past four years for the Logan County football program. Without much hesitation or complaint, he arrives at practice each day as the starting quarterback for the Cougars, hoping to improve what has been more often than not a struggling team.

Now, as a senior, the time has gone by quicker than expected, and it’s almost time to leave the farm.

“I hope it goes slow,” Dockins said about his final year, “because I’m not ready to leave. It’s sort of sad to know that this is my last year of high school. And, of course, there’s the possibility to play college ball, but nothin’s like high school. So I want to cherish every moment, and I hope we really have a good season so I can look back at a great senior season.”

Dockins has thrown for 3,702 yards the past two seasons and scored a total of 46 touchdowns. But those numbers didn’t come easily. As a freshman, Dockins was thrown into the fire in August 2007 in the team’s season opener, a 26-0 loss to Butler County.

“He even said it, I think on (a television interview), it was kind of a disaster,” LC coach Lee Proctor said. “He didn’t do that bad of a job, but he thought it was a disaster.”

Said Dockins: “First game of the season, freshman year, our quarterback was hurt, so I started the first game. We lost. I think I threw one pick, threw for maybe over 100 yards, wasn’t that great of a game. Everybody was sort of down. I don’t know if anybody really trusted me, yet. So people were going the wrong way and stuff like that.”

“I remember being really nervous before the game. But I felt like I was ready, and I think if I could go back now, it’d be a lot easier. I feel like if I went back it’d be a lot better, but it did seem like a blur. And it seemed like a lot of pressure because you’re the quarterback the first game of the season.”

The kid who started that game and the one who will start Logan’s 2010 opener at Central Hardin on Aug. 20 are two completely different players.

“A long ways,” Dockins said on how far he’s come. “I ended up taking the starting spot two games into my sophomore year and I started every game since. I’m really more mature at being able to know how to read defenses better and being able to recognize matchups. Size, also, I was a lot weaker when I was a freshman.

“Coach has really taught me more of how to watch film and study it, instead of just, ya know, ‘Watch this play and see how great it is.’ Instead of just looking at the good things, they taught me how to study it more often and how to pick things out and how to work on ’em. (Then) a lot of footwork drills this summer. I went to two quarterback camps to really help with all that and all my mechanics. All that – how to throw the ball, quick release, knowin’ your surroundings in the pocket, knowin’ how much time you have and where the defense is, how to move in the pocket – all that stuff’s really come a long way since my freshman year.”

And so have the Cougars. After going 6-25 from 2006 to 2008, LCHS went 5-7 in 2009 and beat Hopkins County Central on the road in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs. Dockins has been there to see it all and is now seeing a change in the culture that is Logan County football.

“A lot of people started coming out to games because we really talked up how we can be good,” he says. “We started off rough in our first two games (of 2009), but we played some really good teams and I think that’s what really helped us prepare for the rest of our season. And people started believin’ in us, we had really big crowds last year. Our student pep club really stepped it up, and I think if we can just start winning even more games, then the stands’ll start fillin’ up. The more people we have out there, the better we’re gonna play, no doubt.”

Whatever the 2010 season holds for Dockins remains to be seen, as does his future after high school. He says he’s received letters from each of the eight Ivy League schools based on his academics, but isn’t worried about what life off the farm brings just yet.

He has some unfinished business.

“Win the state, no doubt,” he said. “Win the state.”