Modern resources, dedicated coaching and sufficient competition are three keys most coaches argue are paramount in producing a state title. The Layton Christian Academy football team has acquired all three, but the days of chasing championships are seemingly over for the relatively small private school, roughly 30 minutes from the Salt Lake metro.

The school took its boys basketball program independent in 2025 after winning its seventh state trophy, with the final title campaign led by coach Casey Stanley, now at Westminster University. Bobby Porter won six basketball titles at LCA from 2007 to 2022.

That same year, LCA requested the same independent pathway — which prohibits the school from participating in postseasons or competing for region or state titles — for its boys soccer, volleyball and football beginning with the 2025-26 school year. Like other international schools in the state, LCA has long been part of the conversation around foreign-born student athletes.

Former Utah Utes running back Ray Stowers, in his sixth season as head coach of the Eagles, is charting a new course for his program in the years ahead.

CONNER BECKER, Standard-Examiner

“I feel like our boys wanted to test where they stand against some of the bigger programs in the state,” Stowers said. “Those games bring opportunities with college recruiting. We understand that. Those are those games we want to be in.”

LCA football competes as an independent member of the UHSAA’s 2A classification. The school says it enrolls between 500 and 600 students annually from preschool through 12th grade.

The football team has won four consecutive road games, including a 55-14 win at 5A Viewmont where the Eagles amassed 665 yards of total offense. The Eagles are officially 6-0 this season following South Summit’s decision to forfeit Friday’s upcoming game.

This week’s forfeiture hurts his kids, Stowers said, as their team only has a limited number of weeks in which they can play a football game. LCA has played at home just once this season (a 48-0 beating of 5A Hunter). With South Summit canceling its trip to Layton, the Eagles will have gone seven weeks between home games when they host 5A Payson on Oct. 2.

“At this point, we’re pretty much done with the smaller schools because of these reasons,” Stowers said. “And LCA was once a smaller program, and we were at the bottom of the barrel at one point, so it’s pretty cool to see the program, over six years, rise to where we’re at today.”

Rolling ahead of expectations, LCA is playing to its strengths

SEAN ELLERTSON, Special to the Standard-Examiner

The Eagles are playing like they belong, that much is apparent.

Sophomore quarterback Colton Johns, who holds an offer from Sacramento State, is on track to eclipse 1,200 passing yards at Pleasant Grove next week.

His 18-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio is the best in his class. Senior wideouts Jahmi Harrison-Bismillah and Roy transfer Synic Harvey are pulling down double-digit receptions, and the offensive line is blocking for 1,158 rushing yards through five games.

“He’s surrounded by some options, and it started with our O-line,” Stowers said.

The Eagles are taking some big swings, but you’ll catch multiple guys lining up on both sides of the football each night.

A 300-pound captain Tupu Aaitui, a junior, and 290-pound junior LJ Report are a pair of two-way linemen Stowers depends on up front. You’ll find senior Memphis Hunkin in the pass rush and as tight end with seven catches for 130 yards this season. Aaitui, Amanaki Henoa, and UCLA commit George Toia all hold multiple Power Four offers.

Senior safety Mark Montgomery, who moved to Utah with his family from Tennessee before beginning high school, isn’t worried about the depth around them. He’s leaning on seasoned linebackers, like fellow captain Mosese Reeves, to stand tall.

“I’ve enjoyed playing with our (defensive) line and our linebackers, just making my job easier, so I can focus on more of the pass game than having to come up and help with the run,” Montgomery said. “… Everyone listens, everyone’s pretty mature.”

Stowers led a similar, upperclassmen-heavy LCA roster to the school’s first-ever football state title in 2022 (in Class 1A), just one season after arriving. Before that, the Eagles had put together just three winning seasons (2011, 2016 and 2017) since 2011.

“It was a huge shift in how we did everything as a program,” Stowers said. “You could definitely see the culture change and just kids starting to buy into the program; it’s been fun to see.

“I thought the first year here, that kind of laid the foundation, and those current juniors and seniors — how they went from making it to state to winning for the first time in school history — that definitely set the tone for our football program.”

Lighting the beacon for college coaches

Without a postseason to fret about, LCA is concentrated on raising the bar of who they’re playing, and, more importantly, Stowers said, who might be watching them.

The Eagles are traveling outside the state in consecutive seasons, pitting their team against Mater Academy East in Las Vegas on Oct. 16, and Sutter High School, roughly an hour outside of Sacramento, California, to mark their season finale on Nov. 16.

It’s not a state title, but it’s a couple of road trips many of Utah’s high school football teams won’t be making this fall as part of their regular season.

“We’re in a unique situation,” Stowers said. “We get to create our own deal.”

It’s a new opportunity that mirrors that of the school’s boys and girls basketball teams, which have traveled to Las Vegas and other cities across the Rockies and the Southwest to compete in tournaments, showcases and events geared toward college recruiting.

“Before he was here, it was just kind of a summer thing,” Montgomery said of his school’s football team. “Once (Stowers) got here, it’s become a training-all-year-around kind of thing.”

The change has been underway for a while, Montgomery said in an interview before practice on Wednesday. In the middle of the interview, Montgomery’s fellow seniors instructed underclassmen about an incoming fire drill and gathered the football team outside before practice.

It’s not a military-style operation, but football is certainly serious business for Montgomery and his 19 fellow seniors in charge of lining LCA up for success.

Montgomery, a native of California, is concentrated on becoming the kind of football player a college coach might jot down on his notepad, and he’s part of an effort to ensure the Eagles are fielding as many of those players as possible each week.

“I think it just builds a good culture,” Montgomery said. “They know, hey, even if it’s not a coach telling you to do something, you’ve got to do it.”

In an era where college football coaches are tasked with evaluating hundreds of players each day, it’s easy to forget just how many state titles the particular school in question might have. Factor in the modern-day demands of a Power Four football program, and it’s very possible that the question doesn’t even come up.

But should the right coach come across the Eagles in Las Vegas or California, who knows? It’s creating an opportunity that’d otherwise be stacked against heavy odds when scheduled against in-state competition, purely based on size.

Club sports already practice the “independent” model on an enormous scale, and the Eagles, at least in basketball, have enjoyed a bit of television exposure because of it. If the same exists for football or soccer, it’s a hard bargain to pass up.

LCA isn’t any better because they’re no longer eligible for a state title. But they’re not planning on sliding backward, either.

Connect with Standard-Examiner sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net, X @ctbecker and Instagram @standardexaminersports.