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OGDEN — All claims for supremacy in the 1A category came to a head on Championship Saturday in Ogden.
The title game was a matchup Utah high school football fans had seen many times — the three-time defending state champion Duchesne Eagles and the Rich Rebels. The Eagles have won 46 straight games and struggled against Rich earlier this season, but Duchesne ultimately continued its streak with the earlier game, winning 20-19.
The state championship game proved to be no different as the Eagles had to stop the Rebels on a two-point conversion to outlast Rich, beating the Rebels 14-13 at Weber State’s Stewart Stadium.
“Every year, we think this is going to be the year we lose a game, and we lose a good group of kids,” Duchesne coach Jerry Cowan said. “And it seems like there is always five, six, seven guys that step up that we don’t expect to, and it goes to show you that hard work, a commitment to excellence and out-hit and out-hustle, which is our motto; if you do those things, the sky is the limit.”
The Eagles opened the game with traces of their usual dominance as Matt Muir went 85 yards to give Duchesne an early 7-0 lead. The Eagles extended the lead to 14-0 on a 2-yard run by Matt Dye. However, Rich got on the scoreboard in the last minute of the first half, with Skyler Argyle catching an 8-yard pass from McKay Jarman to bring the score to 14-7 at halftime.
Duchesne beat Rich 14-13 to extend their winning streak to 47 straight, and also won their fourth consecutive state championship in the process.
Both teams played the field-position game for most of the second half until Rich took possession in the fourth quarter. The Rebels drove the field, going 65 yards on 15 plays, scoring on a 2-yard run by Ben Groll to bring Rich within a point, 14-13.
Then the play of the game came down. Rich’s coaching staff decided to go for a two-point conversation to take a late lead, and the play was drawn up as a quarterback keeper for Jarman. As Jarman rolled to his right, two Duchesne players — Trent Roberts and Jesse Wickel — were able to stop him shy of the goal line, preserving the win streak and the championship win streak.
“Bottom line, we knew they were going to go for two from about five plays earlier than that,” Cowan said. “To be honest, they ran a play that we thought they were going to go the other way, so they outcoached us on that. We just had a couple kids (Roberts and Wickel) that had a game-saving tackle.
“I thought it was played well; I thought their coaches made the right decision; we just happened to make the stop.”
Dye said the play was a reflection of his team’s belief that it deserves to win based on its hard work and conditioning.
“Every team is going to put it on us,” Dye said, in reference to the target on their backs. “Look at the score — it wasn’t anything of a blowout. We go in though, we know we can win every game. There’s no doubt in our minds, we’re going to win this game.”
Muir said a game-by-game mentality is the key to Duchesne’s success.
“We just go week-by-week,” he said. “It’s definitely tough, but it’s a great accomplishment for us. So we thank the coaches.”
