Prep football: Ranking the Sacramento area’s greatest state championship teams of all-time
These Grant Pacers may not be the most fierce or formidable football lot to charge through the Sacramento region for the simple fact that they aren’t even the best team in school history.
That’s not a knock on this gritty team that is big in the trenches, fast on the outside and driven to excel for a program that’s done a ton of that over the decades. This is also a reminder of just how good and great it’s been on 1400 Grand Avenue in the heart of Del Paso Heights.
But this Grant group is certainly the most incredible story of them all. Their turnaround is the greatest in regional sports history, and not just for high schools, either. Too vague? Who’s in the argument?
The Sacramento Kings had to endure 13 consecutive losing seasons before producing their first winning campaign, in 1998-99, so cowbell sounds to that. The Sacramento River Cats washed away the soot of four consecutive losing seasons to win the Triple-A championship in 2019, so high five to that. FC Republic went from an expansion team to a United Soccer League champion in its first year, 2014, setting attendance records along the way. That’s big, but not exactly a turnaround, so we’re leaning toward Grant.
Grant has gone from winless in 2021 to a win away from winning it all. No team in state history has ever gone from no victories to playing for a CIF state championship, which is where the Pacers find themselves this weekend. Coach Carl Reed and his staff take their 11-2 record and their recently secured CIF Northern California Regional Division 3-AA championship into Saturday’s grand finale on Grand Avenue. Grant takes on San Jacinto of Riverside County on Saturday at 6 p.m., and the stands at William Rutherford Stadium expect to be overflowing with Pacers pride.
Perhaps the discussion amid the faithful will include which area prep football team is the best since the modern-day CIF state playoffs were created in 2006. The area has produced nine CIF state champions. It’s such a good group that everyone ranked second or lower seems ranked too low.
1. Folsom (2014)
Folsom wasn’t just great, it was historically great this season, producing a national record for points scored and a state record for point differential in a season (915-16). The Bulldogs went 16-0 with 16 running clocks, meaning the clock did not stop in the fourth quarter due to the CIF-mandated mercy rule.
Folsom trailed once all season, in the state Division I-AA finals against 15-0 Oceanside. Folsom rolled 68-7 as Jake Browning passed for 445 yards and six touchdowns, giving him a national prep record 91 for the season to go with 5,704 passing yards. Lukas Hendricks had three sacks for the unsung defense that devoured teams. The offensive line was anchored by eventual first-round pick and Cincinnati Bengals starting tackle Jonah Williams. Josiah Deguara, now with the Green Bay Packers, starred at tight end.
Typical humble Browning sized it up this way after his last prep game: “The trophies and records are nice, but it’s the friendships that mean the most. I don’t know how many touchdowns I have this season, but I can name everyone on our team, when I met them, and tell you a funny story about each one.”
Co-coaches Kris Richardson and Troy Taylor called this “The perfect storm season.” Oceanside coaches called this the best prep team they’d ever seen, and some of those coaches had been in the coaching grind for 30 years.
2. Grant (2008)
Grant was granted the chance at competing in the first CIF State Open Division championship, the big boys. It was either going to be Grant or storied De La Salle, which had two losses in 2008. Grant delivered, beating national No. 2-ranked Long Beach Poly 25-20 in Carson on a late drive engineered by quarterback leader Kipeli Koniseti to cap a 14-0 season.
That victory still resonates as Grant became the section’s first state football champion and remains the only public school to win the Open Division (De La Salle, Bosco and Mater Dei have won the others). There was a parade for the Pacers upon their Sacramento return. Grant in one momentous victory pulled the Sacramento area out of the shadows as an unfairly perceived second-tier football region. Side note: Some longtime area coaches said Grant’s 2014 team was the school’s all-time best while former coach Mike Alberghini called the 2008 team his finest.
Said Alberghini after that weekend, “I’ve never been so tired in my life, but it’s worth it. I’ve never been more proud, either.”
3. Folsom (2018)
Folsom started the season as defending state Division I-AA champions, suffered a 14-0 loss at De La Salle in a season opener, got mad about it and did something about it. Namely, not losing again in going 14-1 with as talented of a lineup as you can imagine.
The last game tested this experienced lot as they inched past Cathedral Catholic of San Diego 21-14 in overtime in Norwalk when Kaiden Bennett hit C.J. Hutton for the 17-yard winner. Then players and coaches embraced, the coaches especially. Coach Richardson knew this was his final hurrah as coach as he was about to join Taylor as assistant head coach at Sacramento State, where the Hornets are 12-0 this season and seeded second in the FCS playoffs.
Bennett finished with 4,225 yards passing and 62 touchdowns, and accounted for three scores here while Chandon Pierre had five sacks and 14 tackles.
4. Folsom (2017)
This was supposed to be a building year, a team a year away from making a real run to a CIF championship. The players never listened. The Bulldogs went 16-0, capped by a 49-42 win over Helix of La Mesa in the Division I-AA title game at Sacramento State.
Bennett passed for 474 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 147 and two scores. Star safety Tanner Ward had 10 tackles. Said Richardson after that game, “We wanted to play relaxed and enjoy it. Cut it loose. Have fun, put on a show.”
5. Folsom (2010)
Folsom started its season at home, against Cal-Hi Sports state No. 1 Grant, in front of an ESPN national audience, and got run out of the place, 49-14.
Thirteen weeks later in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II finals, the Bulldogs bit back with a 41-20 rout of Grant, which was nationally ranked fourth. Then Folsom overcame the mud and muck to beat national No. 5 Serra of Gardena 48-20 to finish 14-1 and take the state D-2 championship in Carson as quarterback marvel Dano Graves accounted for six touchdowns, sealing his MaxPreps national Player of the Year honors. Jordan Richards, who went on to the NFL, returned an interception for a touchdown for Folsom.
6. Del Oro (2015)
The closest thing to Grant’s remarkable turnaround this season was Del Oro in 2015, a team that started 2-6, nearly unraveled and then won eight consecutive elimination games under coach Casey Taylor to win the Division 2-AA championship at Sacramento State with a 16-13 victory over previously undefeated Camarillo in a steady rain.
Camrion Davis rushed for 202 yards, with his 58-yard burst making it 16-6 in the fourth quarter, in becoming the first team in state history to win a championship with this many losses. Del Oro nearly repeated the following season, falling in the state finals.
“Never been so proud of a team,” Taylor said. “Just wow!”
7. Granite Bay (2012)
The season started more with a whimper than a roar for Granite Bay, a 1-3 start, but it came against state powers in Westlake, Oaks Christian and Pittsburg. Then the Grizzlies soared, capping a 12-game winning streak with a 21-20 victory over Long Beach Poly to take the Division 1 championship in Carson.
John Cooley won it with a late touchdown. Aaron Knapp and Dylan Keeney each had two interceptions, and Colin Brown had two field goals for fiery and fun coach Ernie Cooper, who started the football program from the ground up in 1996.
Said a giddy Cooper after his biggest win, “That was a thing of beauty!”
8. Rio Linda (2018)
If you think what Cameron Skattebo has done this season as Sacramento State’s leading rusher is remarkable, imagine how unfair it must have seemed when he ran roughshod over high school teams.
In the Division 5-AA title game against San Gorgonio of San Bernardino County, Skattebo charged for an all-divisions state-championship record 398 rushing yards and three touchdowns to key a 38-35 victory in front of an overflow setting at Rio Linda to finish 13-2. He became the section’s all-time section single-season rushing leader with 3,553 yards, and per his humble nature, he credited his offensive line.
Said a spent Skattebo then, “I’d do anything for this town. I live and die for this town.”
9. East Nicolaus (2015)
Football is a big deal in tiny East Nicolaus of Sutter County. It’s an agriculture region, with players lifting weights in their work boots. The title sponsor on the football scoreboard says it all: “Moe’s Crop Dusting Service.”
A nine-hour bus ride to San Diego County for the Division 6-AA championship meant a showdown against Coronado, a school of 1,300 students. East Nicolaus had fewer than 290. The Spartans rolled 16-6 as Steven Brown hit Nolan Goyet for a touchdown pass and scored on a 13-yard keeper with 50 seconds to go. The defense recorded a safety and had two interceptions by Eddie Herrera in capping the season at 13-2 and becoming the first program in the Northern Section to win a state crown.
It was an emotional and unspeakably proud season for coach Travis Barker, who played in the trenches for the Spartans in the early 1990s and dreamed of becoming the school’s head coach. He said then that December usually means duck hunting and not football games in San Diego.
This story was originally published December 8, 2022 at 5:00 AM.