Fewer than 2,500 people combined live in the cities of Randolph and Monticello, Utah, but the 1A 8-player state football championship featuring the towns’ high schools went viral on Saturday thanks in most part to a helicopter and a Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach.
Just before 11 a.m. local time, Chiefs assistant running backs coach Porter Ellett posted a video on X from the game, which was played at Southern Utah University in Cedar City.
Ellett wrote that he was there supporting his nephew (Ellett himself went to Wayne High, another small high school in southern Utah), and his video was of the “coin toss.”
Instead of a game official flipping a coin and a player calling heads or tails while the coin was in the air, Ellett wrote that a helicopter dropped a football at midfield, and a captain from each team fought for it, with the team whose player came away with it getting to determine whether his squad would kick or receive to start the game.
“Bring it to the league @NFL,” Ellett wrote.
Ellett later clarified that a traditional coin toss was done before this special one (multiple state championship games are played at SUU each year and the tradition is done before each one), but his original post went viral anyway, as it had been shared over 3,000 times by Saturday evening, including from large outlets such as Sports Illustrated and Barstool Sports.
Of a traditional coin toss, Ellett wrote on X, “Get rid of that. I stand by my idea.”
The Rich Rebels defeated the Monticello Buckaroos 50-14 to claim the championship.