MAYER — For nearly 15 years, coach Jeff Brownlee of the Williams Vikings has seen his fair share of ups and downs.

That comes with the territory for any high school football team, and even more so when discussing eight-man football in the 1A conference.

Two seasons ago, Williams was the talk of northern Arizona football with a 10-1 record heading into the 1A state championship, only to lose to Mogollon, 51-22. Their journey along the way, including a road win over rival Bagdad and quality victories over Salome and Hayden in the playoffs made it one of the best seasons in Vikings’ school history, despite the loss.

Brownlee has taken his squad to five state championship games during his tenure, winning titles in 2017 and 2019. Overall, the program has appeared in eight, with a loss coming in 1970 and wins in 1989 and 1993.

Last fall, the boys from a town likely more well known as the “Gateway to the Grand Canyon” along historic Route 66, came out of the gate strong with four wins in their first six games before losing three straight to end the season, including a 64-12 loss to Mogollon in the first round of the state playoffs.

Now in 2024, Williams opened the season with a 50-0 win over Mayer on Friday night. The Vikings forced a turnover to begin the game and running back Jacob Winchester walked into the endzone for a touchdown on their first offensive play and they never looked back.

Despite the lopsided score, Brownlee believes this year’s version of the Vikings has a lot of work to do.

“We are a very young football team, two seniors on the team. We a have a lot of kids who haven’t even played varsity level football,” Brownlee said after the game. “We’re asking a lot of them this year. They’re going to learn and grow at the same time at a fast pace that is high school football. We believe that these kids will be able to excel through practice and games, and we’ll get better as the season rolls.”

Mayer coach Adam Larish was forced to throw in the towel with 3:48 remaining in the third quarter after a few Wildcats players suffered injuries, including their two starting quarterbacks.

Although the game ended early, Brownlee felt his club had meaningful reps in a night under the lights that saw his own quarterback go down with injury.

“I think [Jack Dent] was able to get two offensive series for us. It looks like he got a hip pointer playing defense, and I never like to have my quarterback play defense, but in eight-man football, sometimes that must happen,” Brownlee said, adding the injury has him “concerned.”

“He was a starter for us last year as a sophomore, and he brings a lot of leadership to the team. When he’s in there, we can execute our whole offense, and when we put our jv quarterback in there, it really narrowed the offense a little bit,” Brownlee said.

Dent completed 71 of 157 passes for 815 yards and 12 touchdowns as a sophomore in 2023.

With an ice pack strapped to his right hip, Dent praised the team’s back-up quarterback.

“Daniel Rigo, he’s a sophomore. He got to learn a lot today. He got to learn with the big kids for the first time, he hasn’t had many reps with us at practice and he got to run with the first team,” Dent said. “This is pretty good, so if I ever go down again, we got a guy. And he did a really good job. Our running backs picked up [the slack], ran the ball well when I went down and really [picked me up]. Our defense did well all day, not allowing many yards except for penalties.”

Dent believes this Vikings team can make the playoffs, but with a young roster, it’s not all their focused on.

“We have a tough schedule, but I think we’ll do well this year. We’re super young, so it’s not really a ‘win now’ mentality, it’s kind of a learn as we go and get better as the season moves along and we’ll see where we’re at in the end of the season,” Dent said.

Brownlee has confidence his team will be playing meaningful games in late October, or maybe even November.

“That is our goal every year, to get to the playoffs. These kids will grow, they have a lot of heart, lot of effort,” Brownlee said. “They work hard in practice. We must grow, get experience as a team.”

Being there in November means a lot of sacrifice and “effort,” too, coach said.

“I think the effort is there. Our practices bring a lot of effort and we have to bring a lot of that out here [on Friday nights],” Brownlee said. “I have no problem with a young kid playing hard with a lot of effort, making a mistake, where I wouldn’t like a kid who gave no effort making a mistake. So, if these kids play hard and give effort on the field, we’ll live with that, maybe die with it too.”

Brian M. Bergner Jr. has covered professional, collegiate and high school sports for more than 20 years. Follow him on Twitter @AzPreps365Brian. Have a story idea? Email Brian at bbergner@azpreps365.com.