Franklin County upsets defending champ to earn first shot at state title
In a state playoff game played Friday night, the home team was supposed to overwhelm with its physicality and championship-level experience. The visitor could hang its hat on athleticism but, many believed, wouldn’t be able to hang around long enough for it to make much of a difference in the outcome.
Franklin County, the visitor, got the memo, then promptly shredded it. The Flyers outdueled Johnson County for a 20-12 victory in the UK Orthopaedics/KHSAA Class 4A state semifinal, earning their first championship game and eliminating the defending state titlist in the process.
Johnson Central saw its streak of five straight appearances in the finals come to an end. It also suffered its only loss of the season, finishing 10-1.
The KHSAA’s RPI ranking pegged Franklin County as the seventh-best team in Class 4A heading into the playoffs while Central was No. 2, favored to meet No. 1 Boyle County for a rematch of last year’s title game. The Rebels held up their end of the bargain — they crushed Hopkinsville, 55-0 — but the Golden Eagles found themselves in a 13-0 hole after one half and were down 20-0 after three quarters.
Numbers weren’t the only thing that did not favor the Flyers (9-2); message-board posters and social-media pundits predicted a Johnson Central rout. One Twitter account operated by an anonymous user has posted “betting lines” for playoff games, and had Franklin County as a 30-point underdog.
They were all off by a bit.
“So many people told us that we couldn’t do it,” said Fred Farrier, who reeled in a 43-yard touchdown pass to push the Flyers’ lead to 13-0 midway through the second quarter. “So many people expected them to win. Nobody really knows what we got going on here. It’s an amazing feeling to get to go and play for a state championship.”
Franklin County was well aware of how it was perceived across the state.
“Our kids, we challenge them every week to be physical,” Flyers Coach Eddie James said. “We have a lot of speed and a lot of talent here but we understand that we can’t get to the end if we’re not physical. I was proud of our physicality.”
Franklin County turned the ball over on downs at the 16 on its opening drive before forcing Johnson Central to punt. The Flyers turned their next position into a seven-point lead, the touchdown coming via the legs of sophomore Peyton Ledford. A stop on fourth-and-8 gave it the possession that led to Farrier’s score. Franklin again stopped Central on fourth down before the half but couldn’t turn it into points.
The Flyers forced a punt after Johnson Central received the second-half kickoff and quickly pushed their lead to 20-nil on a 73-yard connection from quarterback Nick Broyles to Zach Claudio with 5:09 left in the third quarter.
Johnson Central got on the board with 8:31 left via a Grant Rice run. It recovered an onside kick and appeared to quickly score again, but a second Rice touchdown was negated by an ineligible receiver penalty. A pass-interference penalty later aided the Golden Eagles, setting up a short touchdown run by Dillon Preston with 2:42 remaining. They kicked off and managed to force a punt, but a downfield pass was picked off by Franklin County’s Jayden Mattison with about 40 seconds left to play.
“We knew that we wanted to make big plays and that we hadn’t been to the semifinals in 41 years, so it was a big step,” Claudio said. “Once we felt like we could make those plays, we felt like we belonged.”
Another program with a mighty pedigree awaits for the upstart Flyers at Kroger Field. Boyle County has played in 11 prior state finals, winning eight of them.
“It’s really easy for people to tell you what you can’t do, ‘cause they don’t want to pay the price to do it,” James told his team after the game. “It’s very easy to tell you you’re not good enough to beat Johnson Central. All that stuff’s very good and well. That’s easy for them to tell you ‘cause they haven’t put in the blood, sweat and tears that you guys have. …
“We’re gonna prepare to win, not play. We’re gonna prepare to go win a state championship that everybody says you can’t win.”
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 11:30 PM.
