If you want to be The Man, you’ve got to beat The Man.

Although Bob Young can’t take credit for that catchphrase, Bradshaw Mountain High School’s second-year sexagenarian has been a football coach in the Grand Canyon Region of the 4A Conference for nearly as long as pro wrestler Ric Flair has been using it.

“We just started talking about it,” Young said Friday, Nov. 5, at Prescott High School. “‘Ruthless,’ that was our motto when we went up to [spring] camp in Heber, and we just tried to emulate that.”

Over its past four games, Young’s defense certainly has, allowing just nine points and handing the No. 6 Badgers their first regional loss, 24-6. 

“Our defense has been playing lights-out for a month,” said Young, on the verge of capturing his first regional title and automatic 4A tournament bid at a school outside Cottonwood’s Mingus Union High School, where he was The Man for more than three decades. “They’re a dang good team, a tough team to shut out. We just beat them at the line of scrimmage.”

The Bears have not allowed an opposing touchdown since a 57-45 shootout win to open October at Mingus became personal for their defense.

“That hurts. I mean, no one wants 45 points scored on you,” said junior quarterback Grady Rose, who threw for two scores and ran for another to help beat the Badgers. “So I think our defense said, ‘We know what we need to do.’

“They came back, and you see the results.”

Rose called his own number on a 50-yard bootleg to seal the win with just over seven minutes to play after throwing for two scores and running for a two-point conversion to help build a 17-0 first-half lead.

“One score, that’s nothing,” Rose said of his third-down scamper around left end. “I’d been waiting to do that for two weeks.”

“I’d like to take credit for it, but Grady said it was there,” Young added. “I wanted to get a first down; we got a lot more than that. So that was all Grady.”

In the first 14 minutes, Rose had already found his fellow Class of 2023 playmakers, Tanner Mitchell and Malakai Stephenson, from 38 and 14 yards out, respectively, forcing Prescott’s defense to spread the field and honor the passing game--something they had not had to do, to that extent, in their previous regional victories over Flagstaff, at Lee Williams and at Coconino.

“Our offense is just bouncing off of our defense,” said Rose, who bounced back from both a preseason broken collarbone that limited his passing the first two games and from having the wind knocked out of him for a play late in the first half by Badgers senior Patrick Willoughby. ”Their defensive ends have the leading sacks in the region. So, coming off the edge, they got a good hit on me, but I’m back.”

The resilient Rose also had to bounce back from bereavement over his grandfather, who passed away from COVID-19 just prior to the Bears’ home region finale Oct. 29 against Coconino.

“That game, in itself, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” said Rose, who ran for one of the Bears’ two touchdowns, all its defense would need in a 14-0 shutout. “Everything I do, it’s for him now.” 

Just gaining a first down, especially after the first quarter of play, turned into the hardest thing the Prescott offense had ever done, thanks to what Young called a “great gameplan” from long-time defensive coordinator Neil Dixon. 

By the time Badger quarterback Alex Vaughan picked it up, with a 17-yard pass to junior Jake Wright down to the Bears’ 30, there were less than seven-and-a-half minutes remaining until halftime, and the Bears had already converted two dropped snaps on punt attempts by Vaughn into a 17-0 lead.  The first one, Bears sophomore Bruce Normandin ensured was a safety off a high snap that Vaughan had to recover in the back of his end zone.

Ultimately, neither punts nor fourth-down conversions could help Prescott, as the Bears stopped them short of the first down on four of their five attempts.

Besides Cody Hanna, three juniors helped Prescott avoid getting shut out at home with less than 10 minutes to play, as running back Cody Leopold’s four-yard run off the direct snap to him in the Wildcat formation, was set up by Vaughan’s 43-yard bomb to wideout Jake Hilton.

"We won. That's all that matters," Young said. "Our defense will take us as far as we can go.”

Vaughan’s rollout the very next play, however, turned out to be his last on the night and for the foreseeable future, as juniors Tanner Mitchell and Makhy Phetinta laid him out at the Bradshaw Mountain 4-yard-line. Sophomore Jaxon Rice filled in for Vaughan the rest of the game and would need to start the regular-season finale Friday, Nov. 12, at Mingus--and perhaps even the postseason--if Vaughan is unable to play.

“Our running backs are dinged-up. We’ve got to try to get these guys back and healthy," added Young, who, himself, hopes to have at least one of his two primary rushers, senior Elijah Acuna, healthy by the time 4A playoffs begin Saturday, Nov. 20. “He adds another dimension to us.” 

The 17th-ranked Bears will move up to one of the top 16 seeds in the 4A postseason, and with a Senior Night win Nov. 12 over another head coaching icon, Pat Nugent of visiting Mica Mountain, will wrap up their first regional title since 2016.

Then they can give Young another celebratory Gatorade bath.

“It’s going to be exciting; it’s going to be fun,” said Rose, whose performance vaulted him above Vaughan to fourth in the region in passing and above Leopold to fifth in the region in total yards. “Our defense is staying strong; our offense is just doing its thing.”

“I feel like we’re just going, as a team.”