Iowa took the lessons it learned early in the 2024 high school football season and transformed them into one of the best in program history.

In Week 2 they fell behind at Little Cypress-Mauriceville, Texas, 31-6 and head coach Tommy Johns had a deep halftime talk with his team.

“We challenged them,” Johns said. “How are we gonna respond to this?

“And that’s going to dictate the rest of our season. And it’s going show a lot about our character, and what we’re really all about. Are we some front-runners, or we in this for real? What are we going be? And whether we come back and win this thing or not is irrelevant.”

The rally fell short, but it also showed the Yellow Jackets what changes they needed to make and, as Johns said, it set the tone for the rest of the season.

After the loss, the Yellow Jackets exploded for 28 second-quarter points to beat Parkview Baptist 45-35. That was the start of an 11-game win streak.

“Number one, we came back, we fought back, and we showed a lot of character about the type of kids we have,” Johns said. “And then the next week we had to go to Parkview Baptist. And we were in a war with those guys … pulled away at the end, but that showed a little bit more what we’re capable of doing.”

The streak included a dominant 62-28 District 3-4A-opening win over fellow Nonselect Division II semifinalist Leesville in Week 6 when they held Xavier Ford, one of the state’s most prolific running backs, to 93 yards. Iowa was perfect in district play, winning by an average of 32 points.

Those early lessons paid off in the playoffs. After the Yellow Jackets breezed through the first round with a 48-6 win over district rival LaGrange, the Yellow Jackets found themselves down 8-0 early to a Wossman and scored 24 unanswered points.

The hole was deeper in the quarterfinals when they went into halftime down 22-7 at Franklin Parish. Iowa outscored the Patriots 35-6 in the second half to win 42-28. Iowa found itself in an identical 22-7 halftime hole in the semifinals at Franklinton. It tied the score twice in the second half but Franklinton scored the winner with less than 2 minutes remaining.

In Stu Cooks’ fifth year as offensive coordinator, the Yellow Jackets averaged 41.6 points a game, while the defense held opponents to 20 points a game under first-year defensive coordinator Matt Dufresne.

“I’m very, very fortunate to have the guys we have here,” Johns said. “They’re the ones that make it go.

“And for me, it starts, we have our two coordinators, but nobody here is worried about a title or anything of that nature. I think Coach Cook does a great job of calling the game based on the flow of it, how our defense is playing, and vice versa.

“I think Coach Dufresne does a good job of when we need to pressure, when we don’t, when we be a little more conservative based on how the offense is performing, and a lot of it just ties hand in hand.”

One of the keys, Johns said, was cross-training players. Two-way players, such as Jeremiah

Bushnell, Cohen Charles, the American Press All-Southwest Louisiana Big Schools MVP, and Jonathan Walker Jr., filled important roles. The trio accounted for 57 touchdowns and made plays in the defensive secondary.

“We don’t have them all just on offense and all of us on defense,” Johns said. “And we cross-train to where our best 11 in crucial points of the game are gonna be on the field.

“You still gotta play good defense, don’t get me wrong, but you gotta have the ability to score. So that’s kind of how we’ve changed to, from a philosophy standpoint, is we’ve gotta be able to get some of our good players, our better players, playing a majority of the snaps on offense as well. And we’ve kind of, I thought, we’ve done a pretty good job of that in that area of kind  of balancing it out.”