Fayette got off to a rough start to the football season Friday night, losing the season opener at Carrollton 42-0. The game marks the third straight loss to the Class 2 Trojans

The Falcons failed to yield positive yardage during their first drive of the game. And a short punt on fourth down was returned by Carrollton senior Maddux O’Daniel for a touchdown barely two and a half minutes into the game.

“Our kids got punched in the mouth early. And we took way too long to recover from that,” said first-year Fayette coach Kenny Grubb. “We didn’t get yardage. We didn’t return the kickoff well. Things just didn’t start well.”

The Trojans continued to rack up points throughout the first half as Fayette struggled to find its footing. On their second drive of the game, the Falcons advanced the ball and moved the sticks for the first time this season on a run by senior quarterback Colten Cross. But the drive ended in a turnover as Carrollton scooped up a Fayette fumble. Seventy-two seconds later, the Trojans scored again on an eight-yard run by sophomore running back Colton Shannon to go up 12-0.

Carrollton scored four more times in the first half to take a commanding 42-0 lead into halftime.

Coach Grubb said it would have been easy to go into the locker room and yell at one another during the mid-game break. “We were all frustrated. I told my coaches, 'Let's go coach kids.’ And so we tried to do that. Our kids responded. We made some minor adjustments to a couple of things that we tried to do at the end of the first half. I thought our kids responded. We came out and shut them out in the second half.”

The Falcons made a stop on Carrollton’s first drive of the second half, forcing an incomplete pass on fourth down just three minutes into the third quarter for a turnover on downs.

Another defensive stop came with 2:10 left to play in the third period when senior Brodi Tucker recovered a Trojan fumble on the Carrollton 35.

While neither of these turnovers resulted in touchdowns for the Falcons, they showed that Fayette refused to give up despite the steep deficit.

“It took us a little bit not to complain, not put our heads down, but to raise our heads back up and go, 'Next play, here we go.’,” Grubb said. “It doesn’t matter the situation; we are playing to get better. And that’s something we talked about, and we were able to do that. It just took more plays than we would have liked for it to take.”

Grubb anticipated that Friday’s season opener would be a learning curve for both the team and the new coaching staff. And not just between the goalposts, but in personalities and game management. “We experienced a game together. We had not experienced any of that. And we learned some things that we have to do. As a coach, we have to do a couple of things better during pregame. We’ve got to manage the bus better,” he said.

“I told them they can be sad, they can be mad, they can be frustrated for a weekend. But when we come back on Monday, we're moving on to Trenton.”

The Falcons make their home debut on Friday, hosting Trenton for the first bout between the two schools. The Class 2 Bulldogs lost to East Buchanan 41-15 at home in Friday’s season opener.

Trenton will bring a large roster with a dozen seniors and six juniors to Thomas S. Davis Memorial Field on Friday. The Bulldogs are coming off back-to-back losing seasons, finishing 3-7 a year ago and 2-8 in 2024.

Friday’s kickoff is at 7 p.m. in Fayette.