1977

1977: Corbin Came Within One Point of Back to Back State Championships

The 1977 Corbin Redhounds entered the season in a position few teams ever experience.

They were the defending state champions.

A year earlier, Archie Powers and the Redhounds had completed an 11 and 1 season by defeating Mayfield, 6 to 0, in the Class 2A state championship game at Commonwealth Stadium. Tom Horvath had thrown a 29 yard touchdown pass to Kenny Gilbert for the only points of the afternoon, and Corbin’s defense had shut out a Mayfield team that had scored 69 points in its first two playoff games.

The championship restored Corbin to the top of Kentucky high school football and established the Redhounds as one of the premier programs in Class 2A.

The challenge in 1977 was different.

Corbin no longer had to prove it could win a championship.

Now the Redhounds had to defend one.

They nearly did.

Corbin returned to the state championship game for the second consecutive season and again found Mayfield standing across the field. This time the difference was one point. Mayfield defeated Corbin, 14 to 13, at Hanger Field on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University, preventing the Redhounds from winning consecutive state championships and giving the Cardinals the title Corbin had denied them a year earlier.

The loss remains one of the most difficult near misses in Corbin football history, but looking only at the final score ignores what the 1977 team accomplished. The Redhounds followed a championship season by returning to the final game, survived a difficult regular season, won their way through the Class 2A postseason and came within a failed conversion of winning another state title.

Many of the names had changed from the championship team, but the structure of the program remained intact.

Powers was still the head coach. Larry “Cotton” Adams remained on the staff, coaching the offensive and defensive lines and helping Powers maintain the physical identity that had carried Corbin through the previous season. Adams would later remember the Powers era as one in which the Redhounds became annual state contenders, with championships in 1976 and 1980 and the runner up finish in 1977.

Horvath also remained an important part of the team. His name had already been written permanently into Corbin football history with the championship touchdown pass to Gilbert in 1976. One year later, he would again play a role in the state championship game, this time converting an extra point after one of the most unusual touchdowns Corbin ever scored in a state final.

The 1977 team did not experience an easy ride through the season.

One of the Redhounds’ early appearances came in the Recreation Bowl, one of Kentucky’s most established high school football events. Corbin faced Montgomery County and suffered a 36 to 14 loss. The KHSAA’s historical Recreation Bowl records preserve the score, providing evidence that the defending state champions experienced adversity early rather than simply rolling through the schedule.

The loss was significant, but it did not define the season.

That became a recurring characteristic of the Powers teams. Corbin could lose a game in August or September without losing sight of what mattered in November. The postseason was the measuring stick, and the 1977 Redhounds eventually put themselves back in position to defend their championship.

The roster was built around the same kind of toughness that had carried Corbin in 1976. Powers expected his teams to play physically, and Adams’ work with the linemen helped establish a program capable of surviving low scoring games and controlling opponents without needing constant offensive production.

The 1976 championship had been the perfect example. Corbin scored only once against Mayfield and won anyway.

The 1977 team would eventually need something different.

As the season moved toward the playoffs, Corbin remained in the Class 2A championship picture and eventually earned another postseason opportunity. The playoff system of the era was much shorter than today’s format. There were fewer rounds and far less room for recovery. A team did not have five weeks to build momentum. Every playoff game carried immediate championship consequences.

One of those games produced a matchup that would become considerably more familiar to Corbin fans decades later.

Boyle County.

The programs met in the 1977 regional championship, the first football game between Corbin and Boyle County. Corbin traveled to Boyle and came away with a 37 to 15 victory, advancing deeper into the Class 2A playoffs. Historical series records still identify that game as the beginning of a matchup that later included state championship meetings in 2017 and 2022 and numerous significant postseason games.

For the 1977 Redhounds, Boyle County was simply another team standing between them and another trip to the state final.

Corbin handled the challenge.

The 37 points also showed that this Redhound team could win differently from the 1976 champions. The previous year’s defining games had often been defensive struggles. Corbin beat Somerset, 6 to 0, during the regular season and Mayfield by the same score for the championship.

Against Boyle County in 1977, Corbin scored 37.

The Redhounds continued through the postseason and eventually secured another championship appearance.

There could hardly have been a more appropriate opponent waiting for them.

Mayfield.

A year earlier, Corbin and Mayfield had played for the Class 2A championship at Commonwealth Stadium. The Cardinals entered that game 12 and 1, having dominated their first two playoff opponents, but Corbin held them scoreless.

Gilbert’s 29 yard touchdown reception from Horvath stood as the only score.

Corbin won 6 to 0.

Mayfield spent the next year carrying that result with it.

Under Jack Morris, the Cardinals returned in 1977 with one of the strongest teams in Kentucky. Mayfield opened the season by beating Fort Campbell, 28 to 0, and then defeated East St. Louis, 20 to 19. The Cardinals rolled through much of the remainder of the schedule and entered the playoffs unbeaten.

Mayfield beat Warren East, 36 to 13, in its first playoff game and followed with a 21 to 14 victory over Bardstown. The wins sent the Cardinals back to the championship game with a 12 and 0 record and an opportunity to avenge their only defeat from the previous season.

Corbin was waiting.

The championship was played at Hanger Field in Richmond before an announced crowd of 6,000.

What followed was almost the opposite of the previous year’s game.

In 1976, only one touchdown had been scored.

In 1977, special teams, turnovers and big plays determined the championship.

Corbin struck with one of the strangest scoring plays in the history of the state finals.

John Francioni recovered a blocked punt in the end zone for a Redhound touchdown. Horvath added the extra point.

Corbin had seven points.

Mayfield answered with a blocked punt of its own.

Jeff Puckett returned the blocked kick 35 yards for a touchdown. The extra point failed, leaving Corbin with the narrowest possible advantage.

Corbin 7.

Mayfield 6.

The championship had already developed into the kind of game neither team could control comfortably.

One play changed it.

Mayfield’s Jeff Jackson broke loose for a 78 yard touchdown run. It was the biggest offensive play of the championship game and gave the Cardinals their first lead.

Mayfield then added the two point conversion when Jeff Wyatt found David Wyatt through the air.

The Cardinals now led, 14 to 7.

Corbin had spent a year carrying the championship.

Now the Redhounds were chasing it.

The response came through Brent Freeman and Don Chase.

Freeman found Chase for a 15 yard touchdown pass, pulling Corbin within a point.

Mayfield 14.

Corbin 13.

The Redhounds needed the conversion to tie the game.

They did not get it.

The conversion run failed.

That one point remained on the scoreboard.

Corbin had another opportunity to complete a championship season, but Mayfield’s defense protected the lead. The Cardinals did what Corbin had done to them one year earlier.

They finished the job.

When the final seconds expired at Hanger Field, the scoreboard showed Mayfield 14 and Corbin 13.

The Cardinals were state champions.

The Redhounds were one point short of winning another.

For Corbin, the ending was cruel because the opportunity had been so close. The Redhounds had scored two touchdowns. Horvath’s extra point after Francioni’s blocked punt recovery had been good.

After Chase’s touchdown reception, Corbin needed one more successful conversion.

It never came.

That was the margin between a second consecutive championship and a state runner up finish.

One point.

The game also reinforced just how evenly matched Corbin and Mayfield had become.

Across two consecutive championship games, the teams had played eight quarters of football.

Corbin won the first game 6 to 0.

Mayfield won the second 14 to 13.

The combined score over the two championship meetings was Mayfield 14, Corbin 19.

The programs had separated themselves from much of the rest of Class 2A, and the rivalry would continue to shape Kentucky high school football over the next several seasons.

Mayfield’s victory over Corbin became part of a remarkable run for the Cardinals. The win was the 12th game of what eventually grew into a 31 game winning streak stretching from September 1977 into September 1979. Mayfield returned to the championship game again in 1978 and defeated Somerset, 22 to 6, to win another Class 2A title.

The 1977 championship therefore did not slip away to an ordinary opponent.

Corbin lost by one point to a Mayfield team in the middle of one of the strongest periods in the history of its own program.

That mattered when evaluating what the Redhounds had accomplished.

The defending champions could have faded after the 1976 senior class graduated. They could have struggled under the weight of expectations or allowed the early loss to Montgomery County to change the season.

They did neither.

Corbin returned to the playoffs.

The Redhounds defeated Boyle County, 37 to 15, in the regional championship.

They returned to the state final.

They scored twice against a Mayfield defense that had dominated much of its schedule.

And they came within a single conversion of repeating as state champions.

Several players left their marks on the championship game.

Francioni produced Corbin’s first touchdown with the blocked punt recovery.

Horvath, who had thrown the championship winning touchdown the year before, supplied the extra point.

Freeman threw Corbin’s second touchdown pass.

Chase caught it.

Those four names became permanently attached to one of the closest championship games in program history.

The game also demonstrated how quickly football can change.

Corbin’s first touchdown came because of a blocked punt.

Mayfield answered with a blocked punt touchdown of its own.

The Cardinals then produced the longest play of the game when Jackson ran 78 yards for a touchdown.

Corbin came back with a 15 yard touchdown pass.

There was no comfortable period for either sideline.

Every point mattered.

One ultimately mattered more than all the others.

The loss could have been the end of Corbin’s championship era.

It was not.

Powers continued building teams capable of competing for state titles. Corbin remained among Kentucky’s best Class 2A programs and returned to the championship game three years later.

The opponent in 1980 was Fort Campbell, the defending state champion.

Corbin won, 16 to 7.

That championship became Powers’ final season as the Redhounds’ head coach. Adams succeeded him and, two years later, took Corbin back to the championship game.

The 1982 Redhounds defeated Glasgow, 18 to 6.

From 1976 through 1982, Corbin reached four state championship games and won three of them.

Only the one point in Richmond prevented the Redhounds from winning four.

That is the proper place of the 1977 team in Corbin history.

It was not a failed championship team.

It was part of the championship era.

The Redhounds had won the title in 1976 and nearly repeated in 1977. They demonstrated that the first championship was not the result of one exceptional senior class or one fortunate postseason run. Powers had built a program capable of returning to the final year after year.

The players changed.

The expectation did not.

Corbin had become a program that expected to play for championships.

For the men on the 1977 team, that probably offered little consolation when they left Hanger Field. They had been close enough to know exactly what separated them from another trophy.

Francioni had scored.

Horvath had converted.

Freeman had found Chase for another touchdown.

Corbin had 13 points.

Mayfield had 14.

That was it.

No complicated explanation was needed.

The championship had come down to one point.

The Redhounds had spent an entire season defending the title they won the year before and carried it all the way back to the final game.

Mayfield took it from them by the smallest margin possible.

Corbin 13.

Mayfield 14.

State runner up.

But viewed across the full Powers era, the 1977 team became something more significant than the team that came up one point short.

It proved Corbin’s championship in 1976 was not an isolated moment.

Corbin football had become a state power.

And it was only getting started.