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rounds of the Class 3A playoffs, setting up a seismic Thanksgiving weekend semi-final showdown with county rival and eventual state champion Piedmont. The Indians finished 12-2( the secondbest season in school history), scored a school record 589 points, averaged 42 points per game, and were generally considered the second-best team in 3A. Hokes Bluff started the season 0-3, but won 9 of the next 10 including an upset of rival Cherokee County in the state quarter-finals to set up a semi-final home game with Madison Academy. Despite a last-minute loss to the Mustangs, the Eagles finished with only the school’ s fourth trip to the semi-finals in school history and their deepest playoff run in 13 years.
Scott Martin has led Ohatchee back to prominence in just a few short years.
community,” says Robertson.
Both Ohatchee and Hokes Bluff have tasted the greatest success a football program can attain in past years, and the expectations each year are for winning seasons, playoff berths, region titles, and competing for state championships. However, in recent years there has been a drought of the wins and accomplishments that Indian and Eagle fans are always thirsty for. From 2004 to 2015, Ohatchee High School did not produce a winning season in any of those dozen seasons. Five seasons ended with just a single victory and two others saw just a couple of victories in the win column. Before 2016, the Indians last playoff appearance had come in 2003. Previous to last year, Hokes Bluff’ s story was similar. The Eagles had suffered
7 losing seasons in the last 8 years, including back to back 1-9 marks in 2012 and‘ 13. The Eagles last state playoff berth had come in 2007.
Most observers of local high school football would agree that the expectations for the Indians and the Eagles heading into the 2016 season were not at all indicative of what the season was to bring. Both squads were expected to be improved, and there was a quiet optimism that both schools would show marked improvement over past years and might turn the corner and produce a winning season. What actually transpired during the course of the’ 16 campaign took even the most ardent supporter of either school aback. Ohatchee roared to a 7-0 start, a # 7 state ranking, and eventually rolled through the first three
So how did these two programs with similar circumstances, but led by coaches with different backgrounds, unexpectedly explode back onto the prep football scene in the same year? Ohatchee’ s Martin backs up a couple of years,“ After our first year here we knew we had to find something from an offensive standpoint to fit our kids. I said let’ s visit a place like us and see what they are doing. We visited Coach Paul Benefield at Fyffe and asked him what they were doing differently. I had kind of dabbled in their Ugly Eagle offense and I wanted us to be the most physical team on the field and knew we needed to run a physical offense. We didn’ t have enough depth to run the spread and we were not physical enough at the time.” Martin continued,“ I wanted to do things we could control and the weight room and being physical was something we could control. If you don’ t have speed, why spread‘ em out? I thought this offense would give us a better chance at winning. We were kind of like being on a fishing expedition until we visited Fyffe. The visit showed us this offense could make us competitive with good teams.”
Hokes Bluff’ s Robertson explained the Eagles’ situation,“ I never thought we were far off. The 4A region we were in was tough and our two big rivals- Southside and Glencoe-were having
28 | 2017 Pigskin Roundup the Magazine