There’s only so long you can hold back a bucking Bronco.
Frederick Douglass, considered to have one of the best collections of high school football talent in the state since the school’s doors opened in 2017, finally combined heart, wit and grit with all that promise in a 28-7 win over Bowling Green Saturday at Kroger Field.
The victory earned Douglass (15-0) its first Class 5A state championship in three tries at the UK HealthCare Sports Medicine State Football Finals.
“We’ve had a lot of heartache in this game, as many of you know. We finally got it done thanks to the kids right here to my left,” Douglass coach Nathan McPeek said, pointing to three of his seniors — championship game MVP Ty Bryant along with tight end Thomas Howard and nose tackle Jamarrion Harkless — while also giving a nod to his entire team. “We’ve been the No. 1 team since the season started and these guys knew that and played to their potential, and I’m just happy for them and our coaching staff. “
But Bowling Green (12-3) put a scare into The Farm’s faithful early, scoring a touchdown to tie the game late in the second quarter and racking up more total offense in the first half (258 yards) than Douglass had given up to its first three regular season opponents combined.
A halting first half
Douglass scored first on Cole Carpenter’s 37-yard pass to Tylon Webb, which helped the Broncos take a 7-0 lead with 9:28 to play in the second quarter.
Bowling Green responded quickly as elusive sophomore quarterback Deuce Bailey led a nine-play, 80-yard drive capped by a 12-yard TD pass to Javen Huddleston at the front right pylon of the endzone to tie the game 7-7 with 3:10 left until halftime.
Bowling Green grabbed huge chunks of yardage in the first half, thanks in part to Bailey scrambles and precision passes, but the Purples could not turn good field position into points. Its other four first half possessions ended with a Bryant interception, an Isaiah Kenney interception and two turnovers on downs.
“I felt like we put ourselves in position a number of times,” Bowling Green coach Mark Spader said. “I felt like we needed to take the lead a time or two there and couldn’t get over the hump. They are an outstanding second half team and they came back, particularly defensively, and put their ears back and got after us.”
But Douglass’s offense also struggled in the first half aside from the touchdown drive, punting twice and having one of its passes picked off by Wick Dotson. On its first possession of the second half, Douglass fumbled the ball away at their own 39-yard line.
The drive that changed the game
Bowling Green couldn’t gain a single yard after the fumble, But punter Colin Fratus managed to get his kick to stop dead just outside the endzone where it was downed at Douglass’s 2-yard line. It looked like a huge momentum play for the Purples. As it turned out, it was just the opposite.
Douglass’s running back committee of Bryant, TJ Horton and Devaun Hart alternated carries as the Broncos got out of the shadow of their own goal posts. Then Carpenter found Tylon Webb for another big pass play, 41 yards this time, to get Douglass to Bowling Green’s 18-yard line. Five plays later, Bryant crashed into the endzone from 1-yard out to culminate a 13-play, 98-yard drive with the go-ahead score, 14-7, with 5:34 to play in the third quarter
“Coming out at the half, we just needed a little momentum,” Bryant said. “I’m just glad they put the ball in my hands, and also TJ (Horton) and Devaun (Hart). … Shout out to the O-line for blocking their butts off and creating holes for us to hit.”
Defense leads to offense
Douglass’s defense made that lead hold up, limiting Bowling Green to one first down and only 46 total yards in the second half. Douglass solved the problems Bowling Green’s sophomore quarterback had been causing at the start.
“In the first half, we were only sending three (rushers) and not too much blitz, because that quarterback is fast,” said Harkless. “The second half, we just showed more blitz and made the quarterback move.”
With Bowling Green’s offense stymied, Douglass got better field position on its own drives and began to make the Purples pay in big moments that could have been momentum swings for their opponents.
Thomas Howard caught a 21-yard TD pass from Carpenter that deflected off a defender’s hands before tumbling into his own on a fourth-down-and-6 play with 8:23 left in the game.
“I thought it was going to be picked off,” said Howard, a Louisville baseball commit, who also shows up on football recruiting charts. “It just fell into my hands, so I treated it like an egg. It was big. It felt amazing.”
On its next drive, Douglass converted a fourth-down-and-10 pass from Carpenter to a wide-open Cameron Dunn for a 26-yard touchdown for the final margin with 1:16 left.
A new legacy at Douglass
When Frederick Douglass began making postseason waves in 2020 with its first appearance in the Class 5A finals, it had Walker Parks, who went on to Clemson as one of the top offensive tackles in the nation, and Baylor signee Devin Neal on offense and defense.
The next year, another one of its offensive lineman, Jager Burton, shared Mr. Football honors and went on to start at Kentucky this season.
Last season, then-Douglass senior Dane Key ranked as one of the nation’s best wide receiver recruits and proved it during his freshman year at Kentucky.
Those are just a few of the outstanding Broncos players who were able to continue their playing careers in college, but fell short of a state championship at Douglass, losing in the state finals in 2019 and 2021 and the state semis in 2020.
This team has its heralded recruits, as well. Bryant is going to Kentucky, TJ Horton has committed to Ball State and Harkless, Auburn. Several others hold Division I offers.
Now, the Broncos have a state championship to go with all those individual accolades and turn themselves from the state’s “best team never,” into Douglass’s best team ever.
“They’re going to go down in history as being the first ever state champion of our school and our football program,” McPeek said. “When football is over … they’re always going to remember their brothers here. They’re always going to remember this game and their whole season.”
That’s how Bryant sees it, too.
“(Going) 15-0, undefeated season, winning the state championship — that’s real,” Bryant said. “Just to be able to say I did it with these guys, it means the world to me. It means everything. All the hard work, the sacrifices and preparation we put into this game finally pays off.”
