AHSAA PLAYOFFS: No change in winning for Pike Road Patriots
Head coach Patrick Browning has led the Patriots to three consecutive unbeaten regular seasons. The Patriots open the 2021 postseason Friday against Holtville. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Over the last three years, change has been good for the Pike Road’s football program.
The Patriots have built a new football stadium, purchased new uniforms, renovated their field house and installed additional lights at the stadium to entertain fans.
One thing hasn’t changed: the Patriots have won every regular-season game over that three-year span.
In terms of unbeaten streaks, only five teams in the tri-county have ever put together regular-season streaks that last more than two consecutive seasons — Tallassee (1942-46), Prattville (2003-07), Edgewood Academy (2011-15), Trinity (2001-04) and Pike Road’s current 29-game winning streak.
“It all starts with the kids,” Pike Road coach Patrick Browning said. “They have to buy in to whatever it is you’re doing. You as a coach draw up every play that’s either designed to stop an offense or score a touchdown. You can draw whatever you want to on a board but at the end of the day the kids have to believe in what you’re doing and the coaches have to coach it and relay it in a way the kids understand it. I think our kids have done a fantastic job buying in to our culture.”
But every streak ends at some point and it’s usually because the team can’t maintain the mental intensity each week.
Robert E. Lee’s heralded streak in 1969-70 that included back-to-back state championships ended in 1971 at the hands of G.W. Carver. Likewise, Billingsley’s winning streak in 1987-88 included two trips to the 1A finals before the Bears were upended in 1989 by county rival Autaugaville. Players on winning programs get hyped for the big games, particularly in the postseason, but it’s often difficult to maintain the mental focus required when your team is everyone else’s big game.
“Our coaches do a fantastic job of keeping the players locked in,” Browning said. “We’re big believers in our kids. We preach to our kids you’re either going to get better or you’re going to get worse. Even on off weeks.”
Browning said the Patriots spend the week challenging the players on how they can improve. This past week, as they prepared to close out the regular season against overmatched Booker T. Washington a week after grabbing the region title with an intense battle against Greenville, the topic of discussion in the Pike Road fieldhouse was on playing the game for 48 minutes.
“We haven’t been the same second-half team that I feel like we should have been,” Browning said. “One topic (on Friday) was just being a better second-half team.”
Getting a team to maintain a high level of consistency, Browning stated, starts with good chemistry in the fieldhouse that is built during the offseason.
“My goal, when I first got here, was to have a competitive atmosphere where at the end of the day everyone knows we’re still a family,” he said. “You can’t be a family without fighting sometimes; you can’t be family without disagreeing at times; you can’t be a family without going through hard times. That all happens in the offseason when we’re putting them through workouts and we’re bonding while they’re doing what’s uncommon to do. If you can get through our program doing uncommon things and buy into our culture, then you’ve got a chance to be really successful.”
One facet of winning that hasn’t changed over the years is the attraction of winning programs to perspective football players. Parents all over the state move to Alabaster to enroll their football-playing sons at Thompson.
Pike Road is no different. The Patriots played their first varsity season in 2018 as a Class 3A program. The next reclassification in 2020 elevated Pike Road to Class 5A. The next one, set for 2022, is expected to elevate the program to 6A. More and more students, which includes football players, are moving in to the Pike Road school district.
“When I first got here, I told our coaches that I wanted this to be a place where if we were all still playing football, we would want to play at Pike Road,” Browning said. “We looked at all the different elements of what maximizes someone’s high school experience. We looked at all facets, everything from uniforms to recognizing someone’s birthday on social media. We were very conscious of what matters to the youth and what matters to parents and what matters to coaches. All three are involved in our program.
“I would hope that, outside looking in, whether you have a son or daughter or someone who doesn’t even play sports at all, you would look at our program and say, ‘wow, that’s a really well-run program that is creating great experiences for kids.’”
While the landscape occasionally changes for teams, one element that is certain to change is the strength of schedule. By 1989, Billingsley’s schedule included a 5A opponent, two 4A opponents, a 3A opponent and a 2A opponent. The only non-area 1A teams on the schedule were Isabella and Maplesville.
Lee, likewise, had a 1988 non-area schedule that was a Who’s Who of football powers, including Jess Lanier, Tift County (Ga.), Clarke County (Ga.), Enterprise, Central-Tuscaloosa and Apopka (Fla.), a slate of opponents that would rival any team’s schedule in the Southeast.
Prattville’s 56-game winning streak, it is worth noting, ended with the 2008 season opener, a game at St. Xavier (Ohio), because the Lions, much like Billingsley and Lee years earlier, couldn’t find enough teams locally that were willing to put them on the schedule.
Browning hasn’t run into that problem just yet, but it’s certain to be an issue in 2022 as a 6A program looks around for non-region foes in the area. The only football coach Pike Road has ever known, however, isn’t measuring his team by its strength of schedule or even by wins and losses.
“To me, the definition of success is maximizing the ability of your players,” he said. “If we stay true to our process and do everything we can to put our kids in the best position to win the game on Friday night, we’re still successful regardless of what the outcome is on Friday night.
“What are you doing with the talent you have and the players you have? Because you are going to face teams that have good cultures because there are tons of good coaches out there that do it exactly the right way and are creating a great high school experience. At the end of the day, if you’re facing a team like that and they’re more talented than you, then of course you’re going to lose sometimes. But that’s not what it’s all about to us.”
BACK-TO-BACK
UNBEATEN REGULAR SEASONS (among River Region)
SCHOOL…………SEASONS…….. STREAK
Tallassee……..(1942-43-44-45-46)….……57*
Prattville……..(2003-04-05-06-07).………56
Edgewood Acad…(2011-12-13-14-15)...…53
Trinity……..(2001-02-03-04)……….…….45
Jeff Davis……(1977-78)..…………….…..32*
Sidney Lanier….(1966-67).…………….…31*
Pike Road……(2019-20-21)..………….….29 (current)
Hooper Acad…..(1975-76).…………….…29
Robert E. Lee….(1969-70)..………………27*
Billingsley……..(1987-88).……………….26
Robert E. Lee….(1986-87)..………………26
Holtville……….(1951-52)..………………25*
Autauga Acad….(2016-17)…………….....23
Prattville……….(1949-50)..…………...…20
Wetumpka……..(1963-64)……………….20*
Wetumpka……..(1925-26)….…………....17*
*streak includes ties