No. 5 Red Bay suffers first defeat of campaign, falls to No. 10 Hackleburg 31-22

The Red Bay High School varsity football team (6-1, 3-1), ranked No. 5 in the Alabama Sports Writers Association Class 1A football rankings, dropped its first game of the 2026 campaign on Friday night, falling 31-22 to a rival for the Region 7 title, No. 10-ranked Hackleburg (6-0, 4-0).

“We played hard, and Hackleburg is a really good team, but we did not execute at certain times in the game when we needed to execute,” Red Bay head coach Tyler Jeffreys said.

Red Bay found itself behind the eight ball very early after Hackleburg’s Timothy Stewart returned the game’s opening kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown. The special teams score put visitors down 7-0 after just a few seconds. Hackleburg then added to its lead in the second quarter, going up 14-0 after a six yard run by sophomore Jordyn Simpson.

After falling behind two scores, Red Bay responded with a score of its own to cut the hosts’ lead in half. A good kickoff return by sophomore Cayson Collins set the Tigers up at their own 48 yard line; from there, junior Davian Colburn took the first down handoff 52 yards to the house to make it 14-6.

Later in the second quarter Hackleburg scored again, this time on a 29-yard rushing touchdown by Braxton Bennett, to go up 21-6, and that’s the score the teams would take into the halftime break.

To start the second half the Tigers earned good starting field position again after a solid kickoff return and again they capitalized with a touchdown to cut back into the deficit. A 46-yard rush by Colburn set up a drive-capping nine-yard touchdown rush by Joshua Thorne, which made it 21-14 after the successful two-point conversion.

Later on in the third quarter Hackleburg tacked on a 33-yard field goal to go up 24-14, but Red Bay was able to respond on its next possession with a touchdown to cut the Panthers’ lead to just two points, the narrowest it had been since the opening kickoff. A short touchdown run by Colburn, his second of the evening, made it 24-22, Hackleburg.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, Thorne’s two-point conversion run would be their final points of the evening.

Early in the fourth quarter, a 40-yard touchdown run by senior quarterback Maddox Vickery put Hackleburg up 31-22, which would prove to be the final scoreline.

For its part, the RBHS defense kept Hackleburg from extending its lead, executing a goal line stand with less than four minutes to play. But in the remaining 10 minutes and change, Red Bay’s offense was unable to penetrate the Panther D. The Tigers’ final two offensive drives ended in a turnover-on-downs and a fumble.

Jeffreys didn’t fault his players’ effort or determination in the loss; the result, he told the Franklin Free Press, boiled down to Red Bay losing the mistakes and miscues battle.

“We made mistakes, and there’s four or five plays in that game where if we don’t make mistakes on those four or five plays then it’s a different outcome,” he said.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Hackleburg because Hackleburg has a good team and they played just as hard as we did; they just didn’t make as many mistakes, and in a big game like that you just can’t make mistakes,” he added. “It was all of us—we all could have done a better job.”

Red Bay’s first defeat of the year dropped the Tigers to 6-1 overall and 3-1 in Class 1A Region. With three games left, all against region opposition, the Tigers still have an opportunity to clinch a home playoff game and, if some results fall their way, an outside chance of winning back-to-back region titles for the first time since 2014-15.

But to do any of that, Jeffreys said, the Tigers can’t let one loss manifest into something else. The second-year Red Bay head coach said the team has to forget about the loss, regroup and continue to work hard and improve every day for the rest of the season.

“You won’t win every game, but it’s what you do after you lose that matters,” he said.

“We have to continue to get better because I don’t believe we’ve played our best football yet. That’s the truth,” Jeffreys added. “We have not played to our full capability yet, but there’s times when I think we’re about to turn a corner. I believe we’ll get there in time, but we have to take this (loss) and learn from it.

“Whether you’re the guy that runs down on special teams or throws the ball or catches the ball, every person on the team is important and has to be locked in every day. We’ve all just got to go back to work and not listen to the rat poison.”

Red Bay will look to bounce back in its next game, a region contest at Waterloo (1-5, 1-3 1A R7), on Friday, October 8.