After three seasons away, Fordyce is returning to Little Rock.
The Redbugs will play for a Class 3A state high school football championship when they face Mansfield at noon Saturday at War Memorial Stadium on Arkansas PBS. Fordyce Coach Tim Rodgers said he is happy this group of Redbugs (13-1) gets to experience state championship week.
“I told them, ‘Make sure that you enjoy all this,'” Rodgers said. “The free meals, the going places, doing things, the bonfires. I said, ‘Make sure you enjoy this, because it don’t happen very often.’
“But then I told them from 2:30 to 5:30 every day, that’s football practice, and that’s serious, and that’s when we need to focus, because that’s what we’re going to Little Rock for Saturday is to win a football game.”
Fordyce won back-to-back Class 2A championships in 2019 and 2020 before falling in the finals in 2021. The Redbugs moved up to 3A the following season and hadn’t made it back to Little Rock until this year. Fordyce lost in the second round in 2022 and 2023 before reaching the semifinals last season.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Entering Saturday’s championship, the Redbugs are 26-2 over the past two seasons. They didn’t lose until the semifinals last year, and their only loss this season was a 21-6 loss at Lake Village Lakeside, Fordyce’s only loss in Conference 3A-8 play since 2023.
Fordyce clinched its second straight conference title with a 20-14 senior night victory against McGehee. Since then, the Redbugs have defeated Jessieville 46-0, Charleston 36-35, Mayflower 28-14 and Booneville 18-13 in postseason play to earn this trip to War Memorial.
Mansfield (13-0) is making its first appearance in an Arkansas Activities Association state championship game. The Tigers, like Fordyce, were on the losing end of last year’s semifinals. Eventual 2024 champion Salem defeated Mansfield 38-20 in that round.
After winning the Conference 3A-1 championship, receiving a first round bye and knocking off Walnut Ridge 51-22 and Bismarck 50-21, Mansfield got revenge on Salem with last week’s 48-22 semifinal victory.
Rodgers said when Fordyce made those runs to the finals a few years ago, the Redbugs leaned on offensive skill players. This year, it has been defense.
Fordyce has shut out five opponents this season, and Charleston and Lakeside are the only teams to score more than 18 points against the Redbugs. A stout defensive line of seniors Kyo Randall, Vincent Stroud and Daniel Warner alongside junior Bryant Robinson lead the defense with others such as junior linebacker Tyrel Harris helping.
Rodgers said the defensive coaches are detail-oriented and the players put in the effort.
“Our defense, they fly to the ball,” Rodgers said. “Most of the time, they’re doing their assignments, and we get turnovers. That’s what we’re hoping for Saturday is we can get some turnovers. Our defense has been able to just stand out for us all year long as far as stopping other teams when they need to. We’ve given up touchdowns, but when it comes down to the end of the ball games and we gotta have it, a lot of times, we stop people on fourth down.”
Mansfield has a run-heavy flexbone offense similar to what the Redbugs faced last week against Booneville, but the Tigers have something the Bearcats didn’t: running back Andrew Burton.
The senior holds Mansfield records for career rushing yards (3,950), career touchdowns (56), single season rushing yards (2,259) and single season touchdowns (38). Burton scored five touchdowns, four rushing and one receiving, against Salem in the semifinals.
Rodgers said the Redbugs must have sound tackling if they are to have any chance to stop Burton, who runs behind an all-senior offensive line.
“He runs the ball hard,” Rodgers said. “He breaks tackles. We’ve gotta tackle great Saturday. That’s one of the things we’ve been working on this week is tackling. You think, it’s late in the season. We kind of went back to basics this week in practice, because we gotta be able to tackle him, and not only him, but the quarterback and the other two running backs.”
The Tigers lean on Burton and others in the run game, but sophomore quarterback Jubal Parks can deliver downfield shots with play action passes.
For Fordyce, sophomore quarterback Andreal Ellison and skill players such as juniors Micah Gamble and Jamartez Stroud will look to solve a Mansfield defense which hasn’t allowed more than 28 points in a game. Fordyce’s offense has beaten that number eight times but has been held to fewer than that five times this year.
Fordyce is the second of two southeast Arkansas teams to reach the finals this season. The Redbugs will hope for a better result than Woodlawn, which lost the eight-man championship 74-38 to Cedar Ridge last week. No Southeast Arkansas team has won a title since Fordyce last won in 2020.