It was not like any other game he had experienced.

Chantz Perkins, only a sophomore, was playing in the 2014 state title game against two-time defending champion Cameron Yoe. The Yellowjackets found themselves in Cowboys Stadium riding a Cinderella run after beginning the season with three straight losses. And Perkins felt destiny was on their side.

Unfortunately, contractual TV timeouts reared their ugly head.

What was only a couple of minutes seemed like an eternity to Perkins. Standing at the 10-yard line, his thoughts drifted and he found himself alone in a giant stadium with the ball traveling straight towards him.

Perkins froze as the ball hit the turf in front of him and bounced backwards – opposite of the direction he was expecting – and onto the field where a Yoe player pounced on the ball for a recovery. Three plays later the Yoemen cashed in on Perkins’ mistake and never looked back.

Only one thing has been on Perkins’ mind since the moment beat him.

“The only word I can think about is redemption,” Perkins said. “I’ve been shown a lot of grace this season and my team has been shown a lot of grace the past three years being able to get the chance to come back here and do what we’re supposed to do.”

The Mineola Yellowjackets (14-2, 6-0) exorcised the demons of the past two years and brought home the UIL Class 3A-Division 1 State Championship with a 35-14 victory over the Yoakum Bulldogs (11-5, 4-2) Thursday in AT&T Cowboys Stadium.

“We won the state championship and it feels great,” said Head Coach Joe Drennon. “I’m proud for our kids, proud for our school and proud for our community. It was a sea of Orange up there tonight and I’m awful proud to see that. We’ve been wanting this, our team has been wanting this, our fans have been wanting this and we played like we wanted it.”

The game was hard-fought in the first half but the Yellowjacket offense scored on all but two of their possessions and the defense shut the Bulldogs out in the second half. It was a convincing performance due to lessons learned from the past.

The Mineola offense went to work early with a 10-play drive that covered 60 yards and ended with a Jeremiah Crawford touchdown. Yoakum responded with a long drive of their own that was capped with a halfback pass from Henry Enoch to receiver Jordan Moore for 25 yards.

It would only take 40 seconds and a turnover for Perkins to capture his redeeming moment.

Following the Yoakum score the Yellowjackets drove 68 yards before the end of the first quarter thanks in part to a 16-yard scamper by Perkins and a 51-yard burst by Crawford. On the first play of the second quarter, Perkins found room around the right side and walked his way into the end zone for a 6-yard touchdown and a 14-7 lead over the Bulldogs.

Perkins, who finished the game with 20 carries for 128 yards and a touchdown, provided his defining moment of the game after the Bulldogs fumbled following the ensuing kickoff. Perkins took a handoff at the Yoakum 34-yard line and cut to the left side before coming into the focus of Yoakum’s Tyron Brooks.

Perkins did not hesitate. He lowered his shoulder and bulldozed Brooks to the ground before stepping out at the 25-yard line. Mineola would turn the ball over on downs after Perkins came up one yard short on a fourth-and-one situation but he made it clear and simple that the Yellowjackets would not be denied.

“This year was a completely different vibe,” Perkins said. “My sophomore year I just felt like I was in a completely different world and it was the craziest thing but now it’s not. It’s just any other field, man. It’s just our game; we just got to play our game. And that’s what we did. We came out here and we played our game.”

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Cameron Sorenson was just a freshman in the 2014 title game. He was tasked – along with several underclassmen that made up of the defense that year – with slowing down a well-oiled Yoe offense that consisted of Aaron Sims, a former University of Oklahoma walk-on receiver and current track and field star at Texas A&M, and quarterback Reid Nickerson.

Nickerson threw for more than 300 yards and five touchdowns against the young Jacket defense that night with Sims hauling in 150 yards and three scores. The Yoemen also gutted the Jackets for more than 200 yards rushing.

Sorenson started at cornerback that night and remembers the feeling of helplessness as Yoe had no problem driving the ball at will. It was through the physical and emotional pain of such a performance that inspired and drove this defense to aspire to be a dominant unit.

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After turning the ball over on downs in the second quarter of Thursday’s game following Perkins’ punishing hit on a Yoakum linebacker, the defense went back to work but was busted on a 64-yard run by Enoch, who at times needed multiple tacklers to drag him down. After the long Enoch run, the Bulldogs scored in an unconventional manner.

Tyron Brooks, who was on the receiving end of the Perkin’s hit, took a handoff and hit a hole up the middle gaining 13 yards before fumbling the ball into the end zone where it was recovered by Moore, who caught the earlier touchdown pass from Enoch.

The Bulldogs tied the game at 14 but would not find the pay dirt for the rest of the game. The Jacket defense shut Yoakum out in the second half and allowed only 31 yards of offense on three drives.

And Sorenson would find a little redemption himself in the fourth quarter when he intercepted Yoakum’s Bryson Hagan at the 10-yard line and returned it for 21 yards to end the Bulldog’s final drive of the game.

“The past three years we’ve accepted nothing less than this level of excellence from ourselves,” said Sorenson, who was perfect on all of his PATs and finished with five tackles and the game-sealing interception. “Coming out here and doing this is just everyday business for us. But that doesn’t take away the elation that it brings at the same time so we definitely want to get back here and do it again.”

Kourtland Sinches was named Defensive MVP with four tackles, one and a half tackles for loss, half a sack and a second quarter fumble recovery.

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It was not the game he had envisioned he would have. Walking off the turf of Cowboys Stadium in 2014, Jeremiah Crawford knew he left it all on the field but still had an unsatisfied hunger.

The quarterback had a decent game with more than 150 yards rushing and three total touchdowns but was intercepted twice and had to leave the game in the fourth quarter due to a leg injury. Crawford was hounded all night and seemingly ran for his life against a bigger and faster Yoe team.

But being only a sophomore, Crawford had time on his side and made it his mission to return to this game and help win a title for his coach, his teammates and his community.

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After tying the game at 14 the Bulldogs of Yoakum kicked off to Mineola who returned the ball back to the 40-yard line. Perkins ran for a first down on the first play of the possession but the Yellowjackets bogged down after an untimely block in the back penalty. That led to a fourth and short situation with two minutes left in the first half and the Bulldogs set to receive the ball after halftime.

Crawford went back out on the field for the fourth down play, took the snap and blasted through the line untouched for 40 yards and the go-ahead score that would prove the game winner.

“On fourth down we just buckled down and knew we had to get it. With me and Chantz in the backfield, we look at that sideline every time before we run and look at how far we got to go,” Crawford said. “We are going to get that no matter what, and we’re just going to keep running hard. They can’t stop somebody that gives it all the whole time in the game.”

And Crawford made sure he gave it all before walking off the turf this time.

The senior quarterback rushed for two more scores in the second half – both five-yard runs – to bring his total to four touchdowns on the night and gained 276 yards on the ground. Crawford would receive MVP honors for his efforts and would have to leave the game in the fourth quarter much like 2014 but this time it was to celebrate and allow the future of Mineola football to log a few snaps of championship experience.

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Many preseason pundits predicted a strong run for Mineola but had reservations in picking the Jackets to return to the title game. The loss of twin tackles to Texas A&M was a huge loss but Mineola proved it was more than two players.

“Everybody doubted us, saying we weren’t going to do it this year, but we came out on top,” said senior defensive lineman Drason Tenner, who finished the game with three tackles and one for a loss. “I knew that with the talent that God has blessed my team, we could use it to the best of our ability and come out here and win it.”

But the work is never finished. Coach Drennon will have to rebuild a large portion of his team but has key players to build around. Sorenson and linebacker Michael Drennon will return for their senior seasons having played in two title games and boast big game experience that will aid them in leading a fresh face defense.

Crawford and Perkins will graduate with their record-setting numbers but a new crop of playmakers will slide in and continue to run through, over and around the region. It’s all about putting the work in and doing the job in Coach Drennon’s nine years at Mineola.

“We’re going to do what we always do,” Drennon pointed out. “We’re going to go to practice in the spring and the first day of two-a-days and strive to be back here.”

The standard has been set in Mineola and making the playoffs is simply not enough for a program that has competed for a championship the past three years. Although half this team will graduate in a few short months, the goals will remain the same for the Jackets when they return to the field in 2017.

Only time will tell if the new batch of Yellowjackets will respect the Process and buy in to the hard work and determination it takes to walk a similar path that the 2016 team traveled. After three years of learning what it takes to win a championship, Mineola now has a map to guide them through the coming years.

“It’s a long journey,” Drennon said. “But a journey worth traveling.”