Nate Olson: Bryant still winning big, just in a different way

The Hornets don't pack the punch like last year, but the winning hasn't stopped.

By Nate Olson| Photo by Jimmy Jones

As we were recording the latest installment of the Arkansas Prep X-tra podcast Sunday night, co-host Kyle Sutherland said something profound.

He pointed out that last year, Bryant opponents couldn’t hang with the Hornets at all, and now they just can’t survive the entire 48 minutes. 

Last year’s team — Mike Tyson. This year’s — Floyd Mayweather Jr. In 2020, there were a lot of knockout blows and quick finishes, and this year, it’s more 12-round decisions. 

Hornets coach Buck James will take it. The longtime coach, who has 199 career wins and won one state title at Camden Fairview and now three at Bryant, was predicted by many pundits to win his fourth this season despite losing 70 percent of the starters from last year’s team that quite possibly was the best prep football team Arkansas has ever seen. 

“It’s a lot different than last year because we have a lot of young guys on defense,” said Bryant junior defensive back Miguel Graham, who returned his second interception of the season for a touchdown in a semifinal win against North Little Rock last week. “I am one of the young guys and didn’t have any experience coming into the season, but we’ve just been grinding it out week in and week out in the weight room and on the field. The coaches have done a great job with preparation.”

Nonetheless, Bryant has taken on all comers and hasn’t lost to an in-state program in 40 tries. Its 30-game win streak came to an end at Longview (Texas) in the final game of the nonconference slate this fall. The Lobos finished 9-4 and just bowed out of the Texas state playoffs to defending champion Denton Ryan, 37-33. Ryan (12-1) smoked Longview 40-7 in the season opener in August. 

Since that setback, the Hornets haven’t looked back. They finished the regular season as undefeated 7A-Central Conference champions and have won both playoff games as they prepare to play Fayetteville at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium for the 7A state championship. 

“The sophomores and juniors have really stepped up,” Graham said. “It’s been a long, hard road, but we have stepped up and gotten better and better every week. I look at it like, if we get the win, that is great, but we will come back and look at the film and correct our mistakes and prepare for the next team and get better.”

A week after the loss in Texas, Fort Smith Northside took Bryant into the fourth quarter in the league opener. The home standing Grizzlies had the ball facing a fourth-and-goal from the Bryant 1-yard line and were denied. The Hornets then marched 99 yards for a score and enjoyed a 35-17 win on the long ride home. The scoreboard showed a three-score win, but in all reality, the game was a tussle. 

Bryant played the less-challenging part of its conference schedule and then began the gauntlet of what we predicted to be three league challengers. However, the Hornets rolled past Cabot on the road, then faced North Little Rock in the final regular-season home game.

The Charging Wildcats, who were very unimpressive in a loss to power Conway, were motivated on this Friday night, but failed to execute. After a nice first possession landed in Bryant territory, Jones pounced on a fumble. Down 14-6 late in the first half, NLR had the ball on the 1-yard line and couldn't score before time ran out in the half. 

That gave Bryant all the momentum it needed, and the Hornets escaped with the 24-12 win.

A week later, Bryant traveled to Conway to finish the regular season. The Hornets played one of the worst halves of football in the James era. The Hornets trailed by 12 in the fourth quarter, but scored on a 13-yard pass play late from senior quarterback Carson Burnett to sophomore receiver Mytorian Singleton to preserve the 32-29 victory and stun the Wampus Cats.

After a 42-10 trouncing in a rematch with Northside in the Class 7A quarterfinals, last Friday Bryant hosted NLR in a rematch. It was another hard-fought slugfest with the Charging Wildcats leaving points on the field. Again, they failed to score on a fourth-and-goal play from the Bryant 1-yard line when a pass to 6-foot, 310-pound defensive lineman Braxton Johnson sailed over his head. The Charging Wildcats also had four drives that resulted in field goal tries. They missed half of those — a victory for the Bryant defense. 

Still, NLR, which led 10-0 in the first half, hung on in the fourth quarter, but down 21-13 late, Bryant sacked NLR quarterback Malachi Gober and Graham grabbed a pick-6 to secure the 28-13 win. A tough, ugly fight, but a win and another ticket punched.

Even though the defense is green, it has been a signature of this team with an offense that doesn’t have the experienced skill players last year’s had.

“For us to get back to the state championship game with a defense that had 10 guys on it that didn’t start a football game ... My hat’s off to our coaching staff,” James said. “They have done a tremendous job. We never dreamed we could play as well as we did. We really just returned an offensive line. The strength of our team coming into the season was those guys. What we have been able to do this with the guys who have no experience … They played in a bunch of games because we blew teams out last year, but they have really surprised us.”

Bryant has won with grit and physicality and the veteran offensive line led by seniors Will Diggins, Brooks Edomonson and Jason Shifflet. Both Diggins and Edmonson are Division I recruits and play on the defensive line as needed. 

That brute force is one of the main reasons they might be favored to beat Fayetteville, which is quick and athletic with four-star wide receiver, and University of Arkansas commit, Isaiah Sategna. He and classmate quarterback Bladen Fike, who has an offer to Middle Tennessee State, have terrorized opposing defenses. 

“We have peaks and valleys, and you are going to have that with young people. We have times we look really good, and sometimes we look bad,” James said. “The thing we have to do in a big game like this is eliminate the times we play really bad. We have had that happen several times this year where we really didn’t play very well on defense. We’d get it figured out, and then our offense would hold on until we started playing. We have had it happen lately with offense and the defensive side [picking up the slack].”

If the game is a nip-and-tug slugfest, James likes his team's chances.

“I think our kids are comfortable being uncomfortable, and we can coach them,” he said. “When we get into a ballgame, it isn’t tougher than it is in practice. It is a combination of men trying to work with young men to buy into the culture and what it takes to be a champion.”

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