On paper, Morgan’s juggernaut defense faced arguably its toughest test of the season in Friday’s 3A state championship going up against top-seed Juab and its offense averaging 48.3 points per game.
On the field, however, it was just like all the rest — utter dominance.
Morgan’s defense overwhelmed Juab’s explosive offense the entire night, only conceding a 52-yard field goal on the opening drive of the game on its way to a resounding 55-3 victory and its eighth state title in school history.
Both teams were 12-0 heading into the game at Utah Tech University, but Morgan left no doubt who the best team in 3A was this season.
“We fell short the past two years, and so it was our year. We knew it was all year, and we came out and we were all in and got it done,” said Morgan quarterback Nick Despain, who had a monster stat line with 371 passing yards and six touchdowns.
He outdueled Juab star QB Alex Jackson, who injured his knee on the first drive of the game and was extremely limited the rest of the way.
It might not have mattered with as dialed in as Morgan was on both sides of the ball.
Morgan coach Jared Barlow believes team camaraderie after losing in back-to-back championship games was the foundation for his team’s success.
“One of the things that this team does is they fight for each other, they work for each other, they play for each other. It doesn’t matter who gets the ball, who makes the tackle, who gets the carries. They play well for each other and they put in a lot of work all offseason,” said Barlow.
Morgan’s offense racked up 547 yards (9.9 yards per play), whereas Juab couldn’t do anything all night and finished with just 118 yards of offense.
“It just kind of snowballed. I felt like we had a good first drive, got some points out of it and it just kind of snowballed after that,” said Juab coach Mike Bowring. “Give ‘em credit, that’s a great team. We were just out of sync. Just couldn’t really get going on either side of the ball.”
That’s been a theme for Morgan’s opponents all season. In holding Juab to just three points, Morgan finished the season allowing only 90 total points (6.9 ppg), with only 30 of those coming in first halves.
A consistent approach and great athleticism were big keys to the success.
“Just week in and week out same things, just understand what their offense does, game plan and we just execute defensively,” said Barlow.
Coincidentally enough, Juab’s offense actually had a strong start to the game with a 15-play drive that ended with Ryker Richards’ long field goal for the early 3-0 lead.
Morgan had an immediate answer, as Josh Criddle hauled in a 69-yard TD pass from Despain to give the Trojans the 6-3 lead.
Less than two minutes later, it was Gavin Turner’s turn, as he caught a 29-yard TD pass and the lead ballooned to 12-3 at the 4:09 mark of the first quarter.
Despain had a hunch he might have a big day against Juab.
“Watching film, they play man coverage, Cover 1, and we knew our receivers were better than their DBs, so we were pretty confident in our offense,” said Despain.
In the second quarter he threw another TD pass to Gavin Turner, and then teammate Gunnar Lish scored on a 1-yard rush on the final play of the half, giving Morgan the 27-3 lead.
In Morgan’s semifinal win over Grantsville, Despain wasn’t asked to do too much offensively with Morgan moving the ball so well on the ground, but in the championship it became a bit more necessary.
“Tonight we needed to throw it a little bit more so Nick was able to do that and he did a great job,” said Barlow.
Despain added three more passing touchdowns in the second half to polish off the win.
For Juab, it simply never had an answer on either side of the ball.
“I’m proud of my guys, it’s about the journey not the destination,” said Bowring. “Yeah it would’ve been nice to win this last one, but we’re proud of the guys and proud of the season they had. We knew it was going to be a battle and that was a good team and we had to play way better than we did.”