Fyffe wins another Alabama high school football title by giving Brodie Hicks the ball 45 times
AUBURN — Fyffe football coach Paul Benefield walked into the media room at Jordan-Hare Stadium after his Red Devils finished off a 40-28 win over B.B. Comer in the AHSAA Class 2A state championship game and exclaimed, as soon as he sat down: "I can't keep the smile off my face tonight."
Fyffe (15-0) has won six state championships since 2014, going undefeated each time. Since Benefield took the job at his alma mater in 1997, the Red Devils have gone 292-44 (159-9 since 2011) and haven't had a losing season.
This season's team might not be Benefield's most dominant, but it has a claim to it. Fyffe didn't win a game by less than 21 points until the Super 7. The Red Devils averaged 46.3 points per game and allowed 8.1.
How'd they do it? By doing what they've always done.
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SUPER 7:Alabama high school football state championship game scores
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Sophomore Logan Anderson, Fyffe's leading rusher with 1,820 yards and 32 touchdowns, left last week's semifinal win over Pisgah with a left leg injury and spent Friday watching from the sideline on crutches and in a brace. In Anderson's place stepped senior Brodie Hicks, a 1,000-yard rusher himself.
Aside from moving sophomore offensive lineman Tucker Wilks to a new position, one which allowed Wilks to sweep to either side, Benefield didn't change anything about his offense, which, in his estimation, averages about three pass attempts per game. His plan was to gain four or five yards at a time, move the chains and bleed as much time off the clock as he could. Fyffe ran for 277 yards and controlled the ball for 35 minutes.
"We knew we had to run between the tackles," Benefield said. "Brodie, that's his strong point. I knew he'd have to carry it 40 times, but I just said that as a joke. He really did. He sucked it up in the fourth quarter and made some great runs."
B.B. Comer coach Adam Fossett called Fyffe's offense a "nightmare" to defend against. It might then be surprising to learn that, according to Benefield, they ran just "two or three" different plays in the second half.
This simple approach worked with methodic brutality. While the Red Devils are "not so fast," in Benefield's words, "we're not slow." What they are, though, is "really strong."
Hicks ran for 235 yards on 45 carries and scored five touchdowns. Not once was he tackled for negative yardage. Of his 45 carries, 41 went for less than 10 yards. The four that didn't all came after halftime — three in the fourth quarter — as his punishing style eroded Comer's defensive front.
"It's ingrained in what they do," Fossett said, while noting that Benefield arrived at Fyffe the same year Fossett graduated from high school. " ... He stuck to his guns. Think about the changes from '97 to now."
Benefield and Fyffe haven't changed, and neither has their historic run of success. It doesn't get old for Benefield, he said, because he gets to see the smile on his players' faces.
"We don't smile a lot until the season's over," he said.
That just makes it all the more worthwhile when the Red Devils do.
Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com, by phone at 334-201-9117 and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Fyffe football wins title by giving Brodie Hicks the ball 45 times
