Piedmont, AL – St. James QB throws 5 long touchdown passes in second half to beat Piedmont in Class 3A final for first football state title
By Al Muskewitz
Piedmont coach Steve Smith knew there were playmakers aplenty on the other side of the field. The challenge the Bulldogs’ faced was to keep them contained.
The Bulldogs had a pretty good handle on them in the first half of Thursday’s Class 3A state championship game. But St. James junior quarterback K.J. Jackson threw five long touchdown passes in the first 16 minutes of the second half and the Trojans rallied to beat Piedmont 45-28 in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
In a game of two halves and two heroes, Jackson and the Trojans rallied from a 20-10 halftime deficit to win their first football state title in the 50-year existence of the school.
It was a reversal of fortunes, one year removed. Piedmont rallied from a big halftime deficit last year to win the state title.
The second half started badly for the Bulldogs as they fumbled away the opening kickoff after regaining the momentum on a touchdown right before the half. Jackson then proceeded to throw touchdown passes of 21, 48, 57, 93 and 53 yards over the next 15 and a half minutes. The last two went to 5-foot-7 receiver Ethan Brand.
The 45 points St. James scored were the most Piedmont has given up in a playoff game. The Bulldogs allowed 44 to Saks in an overtime win last year.
Jackson, the game’s MVP, was 6-of-7 for 283 yards passing in the second half — a whopping 661.03 NCAA passer rating, 158.33 NFL — and 10-of-15 for 351 yards in the game. Brand caught four balls for 194 yards.
“We had seen the explosive playmakers they had all over the field in the passing game,” Smith said. “Anybody who watched the game could tell what our plan was — try to slow the game down and limit possessions. I thought we did a really good job of that in the first half. In the second half it kind of got away from us there and snowballed on us a little bit in the third quarter.
“I thought we did a good job settling back in and controlling the ball the last half of the third quarter and getting it back to 31-28. (Jackson is) a great player. Made some big throws for them and it was very difficult to cover those receivers for that long.”
While the second half was Jackson’s, the first half belonged to Jack Hayes and the Bulldogs. Hayes scored all three of Piedmont’s touchdowns in the first half and all four of their scores in the game.
This was one he carried on his legs. He rushed for 214 yards on 35 carries. The Trojans adjusted their defense in the second half, going to five in the box and cover zero to reduce Hayes’ and the Bulldogs’ expected plan to run the ball and control the clock with the lead. They held Hayes to 73 yards rushing and 2-of-16 for nine yards passing in the second half.
“I’ll tell you what, that quarterback, Jack Hayes, is something else — he is a load,” St. James coach Jimmy Perry said. “We just had to put everybody in the box just to try to slow him down.”
“They changed it up and took away what we were doing,” Hayes said. “After the first kickoff (in the second half) we fumbled and they got on it and scored and it was downhill from there. We really couldn’t dig ourselves out of the hole we were in.”
The Bulldogs did get it back to within 31-28 on Hayes’ 5-yard touchdown run to open the fourth quarter and looked to get back in it when they made a big play on the kickoff and St. James lost the ball out of bounds at the 5. But then Jackson threw his two bombs to Brand and the Trojans were comfortable again.
“The first half, we came out, or I came out, real slow,” Jackson said. “Honestly, it was a little bit of nerves. But once we went into halftime everybody put faith in me and the line gave me some extra time and it was all up from there.”
“Honestly, we probably had more overall team speed than they did,” Perry said. “We kind of misfired on some of the things in the first half, so we just settled down and just let our receivers do what they do.”
With Hayes playing the final game of his record-setting Piedmont career and last chance to make his statement for Mr. Football, the Bulldogs led 20-10 at halftime.
The Bulldogs have won five state titles – 2009, 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2021 – all under Smith. They’ve been in the championship game six of the last eight years. Hayes has been on the team for four of them, missing only in 2020, and was making his 60th career start Thursday.
Hayes scored all three of Piedmont’s touchdowns in the first half.
He directed the Bulldogs to a touchdown on their first possession of the game, capping a 68-yard drive with a 3-yard run. He accounted for 69 yards of offense in the drive, highlighted by a 20-yard run and 35-yard completion to Rollie Pinto on consecutive plays.
He scored a 4-yard run with 6:00 left in the first half, but the Bulldogs missed the extra point. Then he answered St. James’ touchdown with a one-yard run with three seconds left in the half.
In the first half he accounted for 212 yards of total offense, 141 yards rushing. In his last five halves in the state finals (2019, 2021, 2022), Hayes rushed for 387 yards, thrown for 403 yards and accounted for 12 touchdowns.
He is the state’s career leader in passing yards (11,014), total offense (25,110), touchdown passes (158) and touchdowns accounted for (223), which should garner him a lot of support in the voting for Mr. Football.
“It’ll mean the world if they choose to give it to me,” Hayes said. “I think a state championship would have helped my case, that’s all I can say.”
In between Hayes’ first two touchdowns, St. James kick Jake Huff booted a 40-yard field goal.
The Trojans cut Piedmont’s lead to three points when Cosner Harrison went 13 yards for a touchdown with 2:39 left in the half. But Hayes brought the Bulldogs back downfield and used virtually the rest of the clock before punching it in on basically the last play of the half.
It looked to be a good omen for the Bulldogs as they were receiving the second half kickoff, but they lost the handle and St. James recovered to start their championship comeback.
The game started promisingly for the Trojans, too. Jackson completed a 36-yard pass to Beard on the first snap of the game, but they ended up turning the ball over on downs.
“The first half, it went about as well as it could for us trying to slow the game down,” Smith said. “We kind of felt we’d have a difficult time matching up with them in a track meet that was a high-scoring game. The second half, it kind of got away from us a little bit there.”
“The second half just didn’t go our way,” Hayes said. “They played better than we did the second half and that’s why they won the game. You could tell they were fired up after we fumbled the kickoff and it just went downhill from there. We dug ourselves too deep of a hole and couldn’t come back from it.”
| PIEDMONT (28) | ST. JAMES (45) | |
| 21 | 1st Downs | 14 |
| 42-229 | Rushes-yds | 28-113 |
| 6-26-0 | Passing (C-A-I) | 10-15-1 |
| 80 | Passing yards | 351 |
| 2-1 | Fumbles-lost | 2-1 |
| 3-36.3 | Punts-avg | 0-0 |
| 4-25 | Penalties-yds | 7-85 |
| Piedmont (12-3) | 7 | 13 | 0 | 8 — | 28 |
| St. James (13-2) | 3 | 7 | 21 | 14 — | 45 |
P: Jack Hayes 3 run (Sloan Smith kick), 6:47 1Q
SJ: Jake Huff 40 FG, 0:35 1Q
P: Jack Hayes 4 run (kick failed), 6:00 2Q
SJ: Cosner Harrison 13 run (Jake Huff kick), 2:39 2Q
P: Jack Hayes 1 run (Sloan Smith kick), 0:03 2Q
SJ: Clint Howser 21 pass from K.J. Jackson (Jake Huff kick), 11:12 3Q
SJ: Ziggy Holloway 48 pass from K.J. Jackson (Jake Huff kick), 6:19 3Q
SJ: Clint Houser 57 pass from K.J. Jackson (Jake Huff kick), 4:33 3Q
P: Jack Hayes 5 run (Jack Hayes run), 11:55 4Q
SJ: Ethan Beard 93 pass from K.J. Jackson (kick failed), 10:53 4Q
SJ: Ethan Beard 53 pass from K.J. Jackson (Clint Shores pass from K.J. Jackson), 8:29 4Q
