Kendrick, Oakley writing own acclaimed chapters in Idaho football's rich 8-man history

Are these the two best 1A programs - with five combined titles (and counting) in three-plus seasons - to dominate at the same time? Only time will tell

Oakley and Kendrick High Schools are on opposite sides of the state.

It's a 1,000-mile round trip between them.

But the Idaho high school programs are simultaneously controlling the state's eight-man football (Class 1A) ranks.

They’re a combined 76-8 and are responsible for five state championships in their respective classifications in three-plus seasons.

Oakley (9-1) already punched its ticket to the Class 1A Division I title game with a 50-20 victory over Grace on Thursday night. The Hornets will be vying for a fourth consecutive state championship - something that’s never been done before in the eight-man game.

Kendrick (8-0), meanwhile, will look to keep its three-peat hopes in Class 1A Division II alive. The Tigers will visit Hagerman (9-2) at 2 p.m. Saturday in a state semifinal encounter.

One legendary coach knows the difficulty of sustaining that level of success long term - and marvels that it is going on in two programs at the same time.

"Having lived in that world for essentially 10 years, if you’re not willing to put in the time and effort year round pretty much, you’re not going to be successful like that," said former Salmon River coach Charlie Shepherd, who won five state eight-man titles.

"Not only do the kids have to buy into your program, you have to get the parents to buy into it and you have to dedicate your own time to it. It’s a tremendous sacrifice to stay at that level. I have nothing but a lot of admiration for what they’ve done."

Oakley and Kendrick were already multiple-time champions.

The Hornets won titles in 1985, 2007 and 2009.

Ex-Mackay coach Jack McKelvey recorded the first of his eight state titles - the most ever in 1A - with a 20-6 win against them 36 years ago.

“When I first started coaching, they were probably the premier team in our league at the time,” McKelvey said. “Whenever we played Oakley, it was always one of the toughest, hard-hitting games we played year in and year out. It seemed like both teams always had kids laying on the field injured - and sometimes the ambulance had to come out.”

The Tigers had three state titles previously as well. Those came in 1991, 2000 and 2001.

And the two schools always remained near the top of their classifications afterwards.

Oakley made four semifinal and two championship game appearances from 2016-2019. Brennan Jones took over the program in 2019 when it lost to Prairie, 50-22, in the semifinals. That was the Hornets' last postseason loss.

Since then, they’ve won 37 of 41 games by double-digit margins - with an average margin of victory of 40 points. The only teams to have beaten them are Raft River and Kendrick.

The success has resulted in three state titles in a row, which are proudly displayed on a boxcar adjacent to the football field, located in Cassia County on the southern border of the state.

And it’s that boxcar, Jones said, which holds the secret to their success.

“You could go up and talk to any old timer and ask, ‘What’s your first memory of Oakley football?’ And without fail, they’ll tell you, ‘When I was 6 years old, I would come and watch my older brother out on the field and I’d play pickup football with 40 kids behind that boxcar,’” Jones said. “So, to brand your team with something that ties everybody together generationally is super powerful.”

Kendrick has something similar in the northwest part of the state.

Instead of boxcar, it’s a field that all of the football teams in the small town located in Latah County share.

"On certain days in the fall, you can watch a third grader all the way up to a senior on the exact same field," Kendrick coach Zane Hobart said. "It’s really neat. It’s a lot of fun. When our varsity kids are walking off the fields after practice, the others just stop practicing and just look at those kids like they’re Greek Gods."

Photo courtesy of Bry Severe

Hobart was originally the baseball coach, but transitioned over to football in 2012. He was just 22 when he got the job. But within four years, Hobart had the Tigers playing for a state championship. 

It was there in 2016 when he ran into Salmon River. The Savages got the win, 30-20. It capped a fourth title in five years for Shepherd, who could tell even back then that it was only a matter of time before Kendrick put it all together.

“You could just see what he was building. He was starting to figure stuff out as they went along,” Shepherd said. “Obviously, now he’s got it figured out. I sure wouldn’t want to have to face him now.”

Three consecutive semifinal appearances followed before the Tigers finally got over the hump in 2021 - the same year it was blown out by Oakley, 52-0.

"To be honest, we were kind of emulating them and envious of what they were doing," Hobart said.

They’ve only lost one other game since. After a 24-22 defeat at the hands of Class 1A (D1) Genesee in late October of 2021, Kendrick claimed the first state title in 20 years.

It then added a second last season - and is well on its way to a third title.

The Tigers doing it in maybe the most dominant fashion the state has ever seen. Consider:

* They have the state’s longest winning streak at 23 games ... and counting.

* They scored 426 unanswered points over seven consecutive games last season.

* They averaged more than 52 points per game, including against three opponents from Washington who chose not to finish the game. They went over the 100-point mark twice - with the starting crew sitting well before halftime.

* Twenty of their 23 wins have come by double digits (with an average margin of victory at 47 points), including in every game this fall. 

No one has come closer than 22 points, and that was Oakley in a 44-22 win in early September. It’s one of only two games where Kendrick’s starters have played for an entire game.

"Zane Hobart gets all those boys to play out of their minds," Jones said. "He’s one of the best coaches in the state of Idaho, and I don’t care about the classification.

"I would give anything for a chance to play him again right now as well as we’re playing. I think that would be really epic football."

As would matchups with the other all-time great 1A teams from years’ past.

Raft River (2004), Council (1984-85, 2006), Valley (2015, 18), Garden Valley (1987, 1989-90; which Shepherd played for), Prairie (2008, 2014, 2017, 2019), Hagerman (1989-90), Rimrock (1992-93) and Carey (2006, 2008, 2010, 2017-18) were all brought up in the discussion for the best teams in Idaho history.

As, of course, was Salmon River where Shepherd is currently the only eight-man coach to win four titles in five years.

As far as the 1A classification, in general, nobody has enjoyed the historic success of Mackey, which won an all-classification record six championships in a row (1996-2001) in 11-man football before it switched to an eight-man brand. The Miners also captured an eight-man title in 1A with another undefeated season in 2005.

"I hate using the word dynasty, but it was a small little dynasty back in those days," said McKelvey, who guided the Miners to 13 state title games. "I shouldn’t say we were hated, but we had a big bull's-eye on us. But we still came through. I had opposing coaches tell me that they dreamed of ways to beat us and all that stuff.”

However, Oakley and Kendrick are certainly making their own cases with runs that might not be ending any time soon.

"I’m sure at some point when I hang it up, I’ll look back and say, ‘holy cow, how the hell did we do that?’ It’s hard to win one. And sometimes you gotta be really lucky," Jones said. "I do believe there’s football gods. You hear about them. People talk about them. But I think if you play the game the right way. You give your team a chance to win on any given night."

And how do they feel about their place in history?

"You don’t want to throw yourself in that conversation," Hobart said. "I’d love to go back in time and play some of those teams and see where we stack because it’s all hearsay. Are we better or do we get our butts kicked? I don’t know, because let me tell you, all those teams we talked about are really good.”

Photo courtesy of Zane Hobart