Mayfield’s coming to Rhea Stadium on a Friday night, and once again the possibilities are filled with justified anticipation. Not since powerful Paris made visits to Russellvile in Panther state finalist seasons of 1983 and 1987 has a game been this eagerly awaited on the hill that overlooks the town that was once nicknamed Knob City.
Mayfield collects Class A state football championships the way youngsters once filed away bubble gum baseball cards. The Cardinals had a “down season” last year---finishing in the lowly state runner-up berth. They’re back with a vengeance this season, coming to town with a 7-1 record and the number one ranking in the state. Legendary coach Joe Morris’ team is averaging almost 53 points per game during this win streak. The only loss is a season-opening defeat to Class 5A powerhouse Warren Central, which is also coming to the Land of Logan the same night for a football game at Logan County High School.
The Cardinals have perhaps the best running back in the state in Jonathan Jackson, who piled up 1,700 yards last year and is nearing a thousand this year. He carried the ball 27 times for 190 yards and six touchdowns in a 56-28 win over Coach Lance Gregory’s tough cross-town rival, Graves County. Quarterback Jake Guhy, who is the son of the basketball coach, completed 12 of 14 passes for 200 yards in that win.
“They’re a very good team, but we’re a good team, too,” says Panther coach John Myers. The Panthers are 6-2 and also highly ranked.
Older Russellville fans know that this isn’t the first time Mayfield has come here highly ranked. In fact, when the Cardinals came calling in 1950, the game matched two of the highest ranked teams in the state, and there was no classification system then. Big-city press and footballs fans from a wide area came to see the game. More about that later.
Russellville comes into this week’s game with a heady quarterback in Barrett Croslin (865 yards total offense), a pair of excellent running backs in Demarcus Hampton (665 yards on 62 carries) and Zack Hines, and a high-jumping receiver in Josh Hamption (16 catches for 274 yards and 5 touchdowns). The defense has been superb most of the season. The defensive standouts are too numerous to name just a few.
Although Myers says he wants to play Mayfield twice and is more interested in winning the second time that this week, much is at stake in this game. Not only is the regular season district championship on the line, but so is home-field advantage in the playoffs. Friday’s winner most likely will be the home team in the regional finals.
Myers says ball control is the key to beating the Cardinals. “We’ve got to put together strings of first downs and score touchdowns at the ends of drives,” he said on WRUS’ coaches’ talk show Tuesday. “We’ve got to keep them from big-playing us to death on defense. On offense, we can’t go east-west; we’ve got to run north-south, and we have to take advantage of opportunities to score.
Game time is at 7:30 instead of the normal 7 p.m.
Sixty-two years ago, the Russellville-Mayfield game was a monumental as the great stone faces on the WPA stadium entrance. This was in the middle of the greatest era in Russellville football until Coach Ken Barrett came on the scene to win three state championships between 1980 and 1990.
In 1975, I wrote Football City, a history of Russellville High School football. This is what Football City had to say about the Russellville-Mayfield game in 1950:
Then came the big one, Mayfield, undefeated and ranked fifth in the state, came to town against Russellville, undefeated and eighth-ranked, with the WKC title as the prize. Temporary seats were added at Rhea Stadium and they were needed as some tams changed their games to other nights so that they could see this one. People drove down from Louisville to view the attraction.
The Panthers led 12-0 on a pass from Howard Wren to Huey Hinton and a Jim Sanford run. In the third quarter, the Panthers rampaged and ravished the Cardinals. Hinton recovered a fumble in the end zone after a jarring Sanford tackle. Joe Hardy scored on a 51-yard interception return. Charles ‘Bunk’ O’Brien scored on a two-yard run, and Sanford took in a 42-yard scoring pass from Wren. O’Brien returned an interception 22 yards. Hinton kicked four extra points.
The game that was supposed to be a thriller was not even close! Russellville had won 46-0.
Here’s how the local newspaper (which religiously covered RHS football in those days) described the biggest regular season game in Panther history:
“The stadium rocked, and the writers turned red as Russellville’s mighty Panthers plucked the plumage from Mayfield’s brilliant Cardinals in a humiliating rout at Rhea Stadium before a packed crowd.
“Coming to Russellville with nine wins, ranked fifth in the state, the Cardinals left like a cuckoo in a punch board clock after the Panther machine walked through, over and around the touted Mayfield line in a relentless undeniable touchdown splurge. And even after the victory Coach Jimmy Haynes said his team had not really hit its peak, a fact which is understandable after viewing the ease with which his smooth working eleven handled this unbeaten team which had been scored on for only 26 points in nine games.
“The win made history not only in its wreckage of the highly touted Cardinals but in the 13-game win streak which the Panthers have chalked up. It was the first time a Panther eleven ever carried the spotlight in a game billed as the state’s number one attraction; it was also the worst defeat ever handed in a championship bout
“Russellville had the offense as Jim Sanford, Bunk O’Brien, Glenn Pate and Bobby Goodwin racked up yardage at will through the line which had trampled Owensboro, Sturgis, and other WKC powerhouses—in championship form.
“Jim Sanford and Larry Ludwig practically sewed up All-State honors.
“Sanford scored two touchdowns and turned in a superb defensive game. Ludwig led the Russellville play which was largely responsible for holding the two Mayfield swift backs. But the victory was not all Ludwig or Sanford. It was teamwork: passes by Howard Wren, the running and blocking of Page, Rex Johnson, and Goodwin, and the pass-snatching of Joe Hardy and Huey Hinton, the defensive play of Charles Dennison, Maynard Elftmann, Henry Moss and the ever-present Ray Gaw, and of course the thorough scouting of Coach Haynes.
“So thoroughly scouted was the Mayfield team , the Panthers could have sent a man into the Cardinal huddle and still not have learned anymore about the plays they have studied in their weekly scrimmage sessions.
“Russellville now has definite claim to top ranking in the state. The win ended all claims about the Panthers’ so-called easy schedule.”