<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">As a reminder:[/B] Arkansas has six divisions, based on school enrollment, that play football in the state. The largest division is 7A, going down to the smallest, 2A. Class 1A includes schools that are too small to offer football. Private schools are forced to play up in size, meaning that they are placed in one division higher than their enrollment would dictate. (It is said they recruit, but they inevitably are all-white schools so is that even possible?)
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I don't think I pointed this out last year, but Arkansas does a weird (and I think stupid) format for its play-offs. They don't seed teams like the NCAA Tournament does for basketball in order for the best teams to bang heads for the title, rather they set it up based on conference affiliations "¦ and it's done years in advance. Hence, you often have the best teams playing each other long before the State Championship game. And that happened again a couple of times this year. So I'll try to point out the results of those games, as well.
<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">In Class 7A[/B] (the 16 largest schools in the state) all-White (minus a mulatto wide receiver) Springdale Har-Ber defeated nearly all-White Fort Smith Southside behind a smothering defense. Har-Ber's all-White defense, led by Class 7A/6A Arkansas Defensive Player of the Year safety Houston Pruitt, allowed just 20 yards of total offense in the first half and had given up just 67 yards of offense when they put in the back-ups late in the 4<SUP>th</SUP> quarter. Southside would finish with just 100 yards of offense in the game, and their only touchdown came on a fourth down after a blocked punt deep in Har-Ber territory. Junior quarterback Ryan Luther passed for two touchdowns and led the workmanlike Wildcats offense, earning game MVP honors. <?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
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The game was a cakewalk for Har-Ber after they had won what was likely the real championship game a week earlier in the semi-finals. In another defensive slugfest, Har-Ber snuck by all-White Cabot (who had been the #1 rated team for much of the year), 10-7. The third team that had been considered a contender for the state title, all-White Bentonville (minus a black running back) had been upset by Southside in the second round.
This was the first State Championship in Har-Ber's four years of existence, but it was their second time to make the championship game. Not bad for a bunch of "over-achieving"Â White kids, huh?
<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">In Class 6A[/B] (the next 16 largest schools) fans had the treat of watching the ugliest championship game of the year. Mostly-black El Dorado defeated all-black Pine Bluff, 27-20, in a festival of turnovers and penalties. Pine Bluff's "amazingly talented and sure-fire Division One quarterback prospect" Claude Johnson rushed for 164 yards on 40 carries and also completed 10 of 27 passes for 167 yards and 2 touchdowns with an interception and likely would have won the game MVP "by a landslide" according to reporters ... if his scattershot throwing had actually been able to complete a pass on the Zebra's final drive of the game. Instead, he had four straight incompletions, and El Dorado ran out the last 2:20 on the clock. Of Pine Bluff's 71 offensive plays, Johnson accounted for 67 of them ... this despite him being "surrounded with Division One talent." The numbers, you see, tell a different story.
Pine Bluff reached the championship game after upsetting the #1 team (all-White Lake Hamilton) in the semi-finals.
El Dorado used a balanced offense and turnovers to win the championship. Likely the best athlete on the field was El Dorado's White Quarterback, junior Taylor Reed (6-3, 4.6 40; considered a D-I prospect but likely at wide receiver), but the best player was the tiny black tailback Cameron Mahone for the Wildcats. Mahone, the game MVP, scored the winning touchdown with a 7-yard run on third-and-goal late in the game and also scored a touchdown on a 52-yard interception return, had 10 tackles and one sack. For the record, he's 5-7, 170-pounds and runs a 4.7 "¦ yet dominated Pine Bluff's team who is "stacked with D-I athletes."Â
<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">In Class 5A[/B] (the next 32 largest schools) nearly all-White Monticello took nearly all-black Camden Fairview out behind the woodshed and put a beatdown on ‘em, 38-7. The Monticello Billies were the lone undefeated team in Class 5A for the last eight weeks of the season, and they showed they are the most dominant in the same classification during the championship game.
Monticello's double wing offense is set up to let four backs carry the ball, and the Billies got quality production out of all of them. Three Monticello players had more than 100 yards rushing and each had at least one rushing touchdown. Senior wingback Brishen Mathews (the best athlete and fastest player in the game) led the way with 170 yards on only 12 carries (14.2 per carry) and a touchdown. Mathews also caught two passes for 25 yards and was named the Most Outstanding Player. Quarterback Joe Carmical carried 17 times for 117 yards and a touchdown (he scored at least one rushing touchdown in every game this season). Runaway beer truck/fullback Caleb Bryant ran for 2 touchdowns, including a 41-yarder that metaphorically broke Camden Fairview's back and literally left 6 defenders lying on the ground as he jogged backwards the last 20 yards into the endzone. Bryant finished the night with 74 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries. As a team, the Billies amassed almost 500 yards rushing.
"Brishen Mathews was a man tonight, going off for 170 yards,"Â Carmical said after the game. "Caleb Bryant's a beast. They just couldn't tackle all of us. It was great."Â
Of course, every newspaper story of the game featured a photo of the one black player who touched the ball for the Billies, as well as putting his name in the lead sentence. Go figure.
<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">In Class 4A[/B], the Championship Game was over almost before it started. All-White (minus their mulatto quarterback Kiehl Frazier) dominated nearly all-White Lonoke, 56-20. As is typical, Frazier got all the accolades after the game, but Arkansas high school's version of Danny Wuerffel (a decent quarterback surrounded with tremendous talent results in HUGE numbers for the quarterback) had a LOT of help ...
Tailback Chris Bryant accumulated 182 all-purpose yards, rushing for 98 yards and a touchdown on 17 attempts and catching a game-high 6 passes for 84 yards and another score. Versatile defensive back/tailback/wildcat quarterback Wilson Huett rushed for 71 yards and touchdown on 9 carries. Jake Scott and Zann Jones combined for 8 receptions for 100 yards, with Scott catching a touchdown pass. (Garrett Harper, a junior, and David Petrino, a sophomore, who are the two fastest players on the team missed most of the year due to injuries and didn't play in the title game, either.)
Shiloh, who is considered to be the top overall team in the state, had only one challenge in the playoffs "¦ against #2-ranked in 4A, majority-White Nashville "¦ in the second round. This should have been the State Championship game. Nashville went up 35-0, taking advantage of 2 interceptions and 3 fumbles by Shiloh's "all-world" mulatto quarterback. However, Shiloh stormed back to win 51-49 in a barn burner. (I was there!)
In this game, one of the best receivers in the state was uncoverable. Nashville's Paul Morrow had 8 catches for 105 yards and 1 touchdown despite a defense that was doubling him and a quarterback with a weenie arm. I can only imagine what kind of numbers Morrow would have put up this year if his quarterback could actually throw downfield. As it was, Morrow ended the season with 61 catches for 1,004 yards, and 7 touchdowns. Most of those yards came after the catch, if you catch my meaning, but I doubt if any colleges are knocking down his door. Damn the caste system!
As an aside, defensive tackle Samuel Harvill had 8 tackles, including 2.5 tackles for loss in a dominating performance of disruption. I'll point this out again later.
<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">In Class 3A[/B], nearly all-White Fountain Lake destroyed majority-black Prescott, 37-7. Fountain Lake had an incredibly hard-hitting defense and a punishing rushing attack and showcased both in the Championship Game. Prescott was held to 212 yards of total offense and a single touchdown. Fountain Lake has 4 players who've run for more than 500 yards this season, though their feature back is the negro Mark Makin, who is a talented kid. He runs with good power and is exceptionally slippery, but he doesn't have great speed. However, he is a lot of fun to watch, picks up a lot of yards after contact, and rarely fumbles. Mulatto quarterback David Gray also runs a lot, and is dangerous in the open field, but the Cobras also give the ball to two White kids a lot.
The true championship game in Class 3A took place two weeks before when Fountain Lake squared off against #1 (all-White) Charleston at Fountain Lake, in a rematch of the 2008 State Championship. Charleston was once again the more talented and faster team, but Fountain Lake's hard-hitting defense forced 3 turnovers and the Cobras offense took advantage, winning a slugfest 25-14.
<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">In the state's smallest football classification, 2A[/B], nearly all-black Junction City beat all-black Bearden 24-14. Junction City won its second consecutive State Championship.
In this game, "all-world" negro defensive tackle Byran Jones was named MVP of the game for having 6 tackles (including 1 sack) and a fumble recovery. He won it the year before, too, with similar numbers. Weird ... especially when you consider the numbers in comparison to those put up by Samuell Harvill in what the strongman would consider a rather pedestrian performance.
<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Summary:[/B] Once again, all-White or majority-White teams more than held their own against teams with "real" affletes, winning 4 of the 6 possible State Championships, including the largest classification and the state's top overall best team. And in a "bizarre" twist, the two games that featured mostly black teams each saw the team with more White players win "¦ Weird, huh?
