Four-star tight end Seneca Driver powers No. 4 Boyle County to fifth state title in six years

The Class 4A State Championship featured two of Kentucky’s most dominant powerhouses — the No. 4 Boyle County Rebels and the No. 5 Franklin County Flyers. Boyle County entered Friday night chasing their fifth state title in six years — a truly incredible run for Justin Haddix and his program. That run began in 2020, when the Rebels took down none other than Franklin County to win a 31-28 OT thriller.

Franklin County, on the other hand, entered Friday night not only with a perfect 14-0 record this season, but as winners of 40 of their last 42 games. Last season, they made it all the way to the state championship game before finally falling to a 15-0 Paducah Tilghman squad. Eddie James has built quite the juggernaut over the last several years.

We were set for quite the battle on Friday — on paper, certainly the best game of the day if you were just looking at the matchups before anyone took the field. This primetime affair was set to be one for the ages. There’s just one problem with that. The game of football is played on grass, not paper.

In the end, it was Boyle County who would get the 34-0 win over Franklin County. With the win, the Rebels secured their 13th state title, which ties St. Xavier for fourth all-time in the history of Kentucky high school football.

When you shut out a team as good as Franklin County, you have to give a tip of the hat to your defense, and Haddix did just that postgame.

“We got really good players on defense, and they did a great job of getting — our defensive line got pressure,” he said. “That’s a big thing, them showing up. I felt like they dominated the game on the defensive line, and then our secondary really covered well. Our whole thing about defense this year was nothing easy.”

It was a slow-starting game as far as offense goes. 2027 four-star Boyle County tight end Seneca Driver had himself a big night, and he got the fireworks started by punching the ball into the end zone on 4th & Goal from the one-yard line. Though he’s listed as a tight end, Driver does it all for the Rebels.

Franklin County would get some stops on defense following that first-quarter scoring drive, but they weren’t able to respond. Not only did they have a hard time moving the ball in the first place, but untimely penalties would put the Flyers behind the sticks that much further.

With the scoreboard at 7-0, Boyle County could have settled for a field goal to make it a two-score game heading into the half, but instead, they went for the fake. One Rebel — Driver — ran up the seam as he caught a pass in double coverage for the last-second touchdown.

Fake FG touchdown pass from Baylor Murphy to Seneca Driver! Incredible catch at the halftime whistle makes it
Boyle 14
Franklin 0
Half pic.twitter.com/OPJmLqIHRe

— Troy Howell (@teeroyhowell) December 6, 2025

That’s the type of play that will go down in the history books of the legendary lore of Boyle County football. Following the game, Haddix explained what all went into making the decision to call that play.

“Well, we had that in, we were looking at it, we didn’t like it, so we called a timeout,” he explained. “We ended up sneaking Baylor [Murphy] in — has been our starting quarterback and then had an injury, came back and did whatever it was [that he was asked]. Hats off to him.”

Haddix added, “When you got No. 5, players all over the place as far as what it was when he came off — we didn’t think they were really looking for that. They were looking more at the sideline, and Baylor did a great job of holding in there, and then gave him a chance to make a play.”

Driver would continue his domination in the second half, scoring his third touchdown of the night via a six-yard dash to the end zone to make it 21-0 Boyle County off a direct snap. Just when it looked like Franklin County would finally get on the board with 3:39 to go in the third, the Flyers were stuffed four times in a row inside the Rebels’ 10-yard line as they turned it over on downs.

It wasn’t just the Driver Show, however. Senior tailback Ji’Dyn Smith-Hisel made it 28-0 Rebels when he bursted for a 23-yard touchdown on the ground. Then, Smith-Hisel got himself another rushing touchdown, this time from 50 yards out to make it 34-0 late in the fourth.

Justin Haddix and Boyle County are on a run comparable to the likes of Bob Beatty (Trinity), Mike Yeagle (Beechwood), Joe Morris (Mayfield), Dale Mueller (Highlands) and Philip Haywood (Belfry). History is being made practically every year Haddix’s program takes the field, and that was the case in 2025 as well.