WINTHROP – There were two great myths whispered about Winthrop High School at the dawn of this football season.

One, the Ramblers wouldn’t be the same after an injury to their most explosive running back. And two, whatever success junior-dominated Winthrop enjoyed a year ahead of schedule would be owed to finesse.

Wrong, and way off.

Losing all-conference breakaway threat Jake Steele to preseason shoulder surgery hasn’t made Winthrop soft or predictable or anything less than the most dangerous offense in Western Class C.

Juniors Joe Morey and Skyler Whaley and sophomore Riley Cobb have emerged as a three-headed monster behind the more celebrated quarterback Jordan Conant, combining for more than 1,800 yards and 16 touchdowns in leading the Ramblers to their first Campbell Conference title game since 2001.

No. 1 Winthrop (9-1) hosts No. 2 Boothbay (9-1) at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

“When you’ve got three guys combining for almost 2,000 yards, to sit back and say your quarterback throwing for 1,200 yards is the reason you’re winning isn’t the whole story,” said Winthrop coach Joel Stoneton. “Everything complements each other.”

Morey, Cobb and Whaley are a notch more complicated than the two-back system now trendy in college and pro football.

Once a defense thinks it has Winthrop’s offensive tendencies or at least its every-down back’s style figured out, the Ramblers summon a pinch-hitter who’s a pure home run threat.

And if that doesn’t materialize and the gang in green is feeling particularly vicious, they might unleash a third dimension all in the space of the same, time-consuming drive.

“Riley (Cobb) is a very shifty back. It’s hard to tell where he’s going,” Whaley assessed. “Joe Morey’s got that combination of shiftiness, but he also can pound it right in your face. I’m just going to run right up the middle. That’s all I know how to do.”

Morey entered the season with the most varsity experience, having played third wheel to Steele and now-graduated Russ Schmelzer in a partial season last autumn. He has amassed more than half the trio’s total carries (171) while averaging 4.6 yards per attempt.

Adept at moving the chains and keeping defensive eyes focused off tackle, Morey finds the perfect foil in Cobb, who plays a mite more explosive than his listed weight of 165 pounds. Cobb frequently toss-sweeps his way to freedom before his pursuers figure out there’s a different number on the vehicle.

“Sharing the load definitely helps,” said Morey. “You can’t focus on just one. You’ve got to plan for a couple other guys.”

The slasher and burner enjoy nearly identical numbers. Morey (788 yards) and Cobb (769) each have five touchdowns to their credit.

Now throw in Whaley, who out-dueled three other challengers in a battle for the fullback slot and has emerged as the Ramblers’ closer, so to speak. He leads the group with six touchdowns, rarely reaching the end zone without bringing an exhausted, would-be tackler along for the ride.

Whoever’s taking the handoff, there are two invariables: The constant threat of Conant flinging the ball deep to receivers Zach Farrington, Andrew Smithgall and Jason Raymond, and the front five of 300-pound left tackle Brandon Kenney, Jeremy Luce, Chris Minor, Josh Confer and Sam Mullen.

“The line has opened up some holes to allow us to chew the clock and keep offenses off the field, and for the guys that are two-way starters it helps slow down our offense,” Stoneton said.

That means slow it down in a good way, not the manner in which Whaley admittedly thought the off-season injury bug would handicap the Ramblers.

“We were all in the weight room that day when we found out Jake got hurt, and we were all like, ‘What’s the season going to be like without our best player?’ I’m not going to lie. I was a little skeptical at first about how good this team was going to be. But after a couple of practices you could see it,” Whaley said.

“We’ve just got such great receivers in Raymond, Farrington and Smithgall, and Jordan can get it to them at any time. When they’re all keying on that, it opens up a lot of holes for people like Joe and me and Riley to make the plays that count.”

Steele’s expected return won’t complicate matters much next season.

Stoneton expected to shuffle at least three backs into the fray this season, anyway, in light of Steele, Schmelzer and Morey’s success in triplicate a year ago.

As for now, Winthrop is back playing in November for the first time since a loss to Boothbay in the 2001 Western final. It’s the time of year when players and coaches sweat out the extended weather forecast every day, hearing words such as “wind” and “snow flurries” bandied about freely.

There’s no such thing as too many running backs in those conditions.

“Without the run game, you become one-dimensional,” said Kenney, “and with one dimension you can’t make it in football.”

“If you look at the stats from the first Boothbay game (a 33-14 win on Sept. 29), we ran for over 200 yards,” noted Stoneton. “That’s why I think it’s great that people just try to take the long ball away. It sets up the run very well for us.”