After three years of playoff underachievement, Ridgeline finally put an end to their frustration with an emphatic performance in Thursday’s 4A state championship.
Top-ranked Ridgeline — which had bowed out of the semis the previous three seasons — dominated underdog No. 14 seed Green Canyon at Rice-Eccles Stadium, scoring on all eight offensive possessions on its way to the 56-0 victory.
“We had a good feeling after last week, kind of getting that monkey off our back that we could come down here and just play free. And the whole goal was go out playing the absolute best we could possibly play,” said Ridgeline coach Travis Cox.
The 56-0 win was the biggest championship game shutout since 1919, when East beat Payson 79-0.
Going all the way back to the summer, there’s been an urgency to the way Ridgeline went about its business. The result was a perfect 14-0 season, the school’s second perfect season in five years as the Riverhawks went 13-0 in winning the 2021 title.
“You lose last year when you feel like you had a pretty good chance to win it, and that sticks with you all offseason. There was no game we were going to take lightly. And you know, the key to this season of this team was what we did on the practice field,” Cox said.
Ridgeline’s average margin of victory in 2021 was 30.8. This season, that margin was 43.6 ppg.
Nate Dahle and Graham Livingston have been Ridgeline’s stars the past three seasons, so it was only fitting that in their high school career finale, they were the catalysts in the game that finally pushed the Riverhawks over the hump.
Dahle passed for four touchdowns and rushed for three more, tying the state record for TDs responsible in a championship game with seven. He finished the game completing 16 of 20 passes for 270 yards, while he carried the ball six times for 30 yards.
He finished his career with 12,464 passing yards (second all-time) and 128 passing TDs (third all-time).
His coach credits Dahle with being the exact type of leader the team needed after last year’s semifinal loss. Dahle said after that semifinal loss to Spanish Fork, a mentality shift was necessary.
“We switched it not to be negative, because I think we were a little negative on the other team last year, and we overlooked them, and we just decided to have confidence in ourselves and know what we can do to win the game,” said Dahle.
Added Cox, “And you know, whenever you have great leadership for your senior group, you typically have pretty good teams.”
Of Dahle’s 858 completions in his career, 313 went to BYU commit Livingston. The 313 receptions is a state record, 28 more than Corner Canyon’s Noah Kjar (2017-20).
Livingston also finished his career with 4,980 yards (second all time) and 50 touchdowns (tied for third all-time).
Livingston and Dahle have been playing together since they were in the fourth grade.
“We’ve thrown a million passes together, so just that connection, there’s nothing like it,” Dahle said.
In their final game together, Livingston caught eight passes from Dahle for 149 yards and two touchdowns.
Ridgeline racked up 427 yards of total offense compared to just 183 for Green Canyon. The Riverhawks’ offense was so dominant, it only faced four third downs the entire game, and they converted them all.
Ridgeline beat Green Canyon 49-14 earlier this season, a game that was 42-0 at the half.
The Wolves knew they needed to try and shorten the game by keeping Ridgeline’s explosive offense on the sideline as much as possible. It’s a big reason why after winning the opening coin toss, they elected to receive the ball.
Green Canyon picked up one first down on that opening drive, but then punted. Eight plays later, Dahle marched into the end zone for the first of his three rushing TDs for the 6-0 lead.
Ridgeline’s offense only touched the ball twice more in the first half, but it scored touchdowns both times.
“We always take the ball, so it was a little bit weird for us to kind of sit there and watch. So we leaned on our defense to get off the field and get us a possession quickly, and credit Green Canyon there for a little bit — in the first half, I think we only got three possessions,” Cox said. “It was really key that the few possessions that we did have, that we actually scored.”
Green Canyon ran 11 more plays than Ridgeline in the first half and had the ball for 22 more seconds, but its inability to get anything going in the running game proved to be a big problem.
In the first half, the Wolves carried the ball 13 times for just 16 yards. On a key fourth down and 1, the Wolves ran the ball but got stuffed at the line of scrimmage. For the game, Green Canyon finished with just three net rushing yards, the eighth fewest in a championship in state history.
Green Canyon had two chances to get points on the board in the first half. The first came on a blocked 43-yard field goal, and the second came in the final six seconds of the half as it had two cracks at the end zone from inside 15 yards, but both passes fell incomplete.
In the second half, Ridgeline held Green Canyon to just 15 yards of total offense with six sack as it earned its fourth shutout of the season.
“Anytime you can win a state championship, it’s just an amazing feeling. They’re not easy to come by. And you know, to do it with an undefeated season just speaks to the program, to all the coaches and the players. It just takes so many people to all the help that we have from parents. This is a program win, and to do it again is just an amazing, amazing feeling,” said Cox.