KAYSVILLE — The Davis High football team looked like a wild card in the summer.

Following an eight-win season in 2022, the Darts lost some of their best players to graduation and transfers, and didn’t yet know how their young players and new transfers would fare.

So they were picked to finish anywhere between first place and fifth in Region 1 various preseason projections. Once they won their first game, fifth place seemed absurd.

Davis eventually went 10-2 overall and 5-0 in Region 1, winning 10 games — consecutively — for the first time since 2009 and winning their first region title since 2016.

The Darts are the 2023 Standard-Examiner All-Area Football Team of the Year. Like most teams, winning a region title topped their preseason goals list in January.

“As the offseason was piecing together, we started to realize that these young bucks were stepping up and we had a true leader at quarterback and nobody really knew who Kash Gates was, (but) we did,” head coach Scott Peery said. “The D-line was scary good and so we were like, ‘We’re definitely gonna give ourselves a chance here if we play some good football.'”

Gates, a senior receiver and safety, tore his ACL in the fourth game of his junior season and missed the rest of the year. He came back for his senior season for 78 catches, 943 yards and 15 touchdowns, winning the Region 1 MVP award.

“Hard work was there, skill set was there and when you match great confidence with a great skill set … you knew he was going to be a great player for us,” Peery said.

Sophomore quarterback Tradon Bessinger stepped in after starter Jackson Stevens went to Skyridge. Bessinger completed 67.4% of his passes for 2,925 yards, 32 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Three receivers had 55 or more catches.

Hindsight is of course 20/20, but when one thinks about it, the Darts should have been the preseason favorite all along — but not because of anything the offense presented. They had an objectively good defensive line, whose impact was magnified playing in Region 1 against traditionally smaller offensive lines.

Senior Jordan Taula, a returning starter, anchored the D-line group with 76 tackles to go with team-highs of 13 tackles for loss and six sacks.

Coaches talk ad nauseam about controlling the line of scrimmage. Well, the Davis run defense allowed 86.8 yards per game and 3.6 yards per carry. In Region 1 play, those numbers were 89.4 yards per game and 3.7 yards per rush.

“There were weeks where I was just overly, super impressed with the game plan (defensive coordinator Cameron Pribble) put together and how it executed and how it turned out. Our defense was tough this year,” Peery said.

In late September, the 6-1 Darts went to winless Layton for what has historically been a rivalry game. Though this year looked like another stop on the Davis domination tour, the Lancers led in the fourth quarter before the Darts eventually won 31-21.

The wire went higher the following week at heated rival Farmington, where the Darts came back from 28-14 down in the fourth quarter to win 36-35. Owen Talbot scored a 1-yard rushing TD with eight seconds left, then punched in the game-winning two-point conversion for an epic victory.

“I truly believe we won a couple of those games that maybe we shouldn’t have … because of the culture in place,” Peery said. “Everything we did, we competed to win and I think you get in those moments and it’s just ingrained, it’s our DNA and it came out in those games when it needed to.”

Despite many outsiders predicting a double-digit loss the next week, Davis held a Syracuse offense that, to that point, had averaged 34.4 points per game to just 10 points in a 22-10 smothering.

The Darts became the first current Region 1 member not named Weber or Syracuse to win the region championship.

“It means everything. Region 1 is fricking tough,” freshman wideout Bode Sparrow told the Standard-Examiner after the Syracuse game. “There’s some good teams and everyone knows everyone here, so it’s always fun to play against these guys and get a region championship. I was in third grade last time we won and can’t remember it, so it’s a great feeling for sure.”

Sparrow, who played youth football in Morgan, was one of Davis’ multiple high-impact transfers. He had 69 catches, 842 yards and 10 touchdowns, and now has multiple Power 5 offers, including from BYU.

Sophomore Viliami Moala, who came from Brighton High with multiple high-level college offers to his name, turned Davis’ D-line from good to scary. He had eight tackles for loss, three sacks and numerous other plays that didn’t grace the stat sheet. After seven games, Moala transferred to Cactus High in Arizona after what was described at the time by sources with knowledge of the situation as a “serious family matter.”

The defensive line pushed on with Taula, Juni Moala (28 tackles, five sacks) and Jackson Kuma (30 tackles, four sacks) turning in fine seasons.

In the state playoffs, the No. 6 Darts beat Weber 17-13 in an ugly second-round game before being throttled at Lehi 52-21 in the quarterfinals. Both of the season’s losses came to Lehi.

Plenty of seniors depart after playing key roles for Davis, such as Gates, most of the O-line, Taula, linebackers Crew Cunningham and Carter Dorius, and about half the starting defense.

Keep looking and one sees D-linemen Juni Moala (sophomore) and Jackson Kuma (junior), running back Owen Talbot (junior), Sparrow (freshman) and Tyson Baggett (sophomore) in the receiving group, and Bessinger at QB among many more possible returners.

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