It is shortly before the day’s afternoon film session at Boone County High School and everything is running on schedule. This is somewhat of a novel development for the football team in Florence, where little has gone according to plan this season despite the best intentions.
“It’s been a tough year with all the injuries,” head coach Dan Court said. “Now we have the roughest part of the schedule coming up.”
The Rebels are drilling down on specifics via the day’s carefully curated footage. Coach Court then marches his squad out onto the practice field in preparation for Friday’s game against Dixie Heights. The Rebels put into action what they just learned in the film room and continue to battle the forces of fate that have conspired against them in this already rough rebuilding season, one that rests squarely inside a lengthy rebuild.
“My goals are to keep doing what I’m doing and hopefully get a couple wins over the last few games,” senior running back Malik Johnson said. “We’ve got 16 seniors. The energy we all bring carries us along but we’re still building.”
They do so one step at a time with the high-stepping Johnson, who has proven to be a foundational figure as the program tries to find another gear.
“He’s having an incredible season, but his breakout was last year,” Court said of his workhorse. “This year, he’s doing it when we’re so banged up, and it just shows his ability and his leadership. No matter what, he’s getting the ball 25 times a game because we absolutely need to do that to have a chance.”
Nobody said it was going to be easy at Boone County, where winning seasons arrive less often than leap years. The last winning campaign was 2011. Before Court arrived, the Rebels had a 19-107 record for a .150 winning percentage from 2012-23. They had 25 consecutive district losses, a streak that reached 31 before they finally ended it last year with a win over Scott.
The Rebels also made it back to the playoffs last season for the first time since 2018 with a Class 5A appearance and a quick ouster against Woodford County. In his three seasons at Boone County, Court has a winning percentage of .400, a figure that’s 60 percent better than the previous 12-year stretch.
Court knew winning at Boone would be hard when he was hired in March of 2024 as yet another branch on the coaching tree underneath Highlands legend Dale Mueller, still the gold standard for northern Kentucky high school football coaches. Court began his coaching career as an assistant on Mueller’s 2010 staff that won a state title. As a result, the 2008 Highlands graduate and state championship-winning player knows a thing or two about prep football. He’s needed it all this fall.
“We’ve had five season-ending injuries,” Court said. “We were missing five starters on defense the last game we played (vs. Scott) and we had zero quarterbacks dressed. I think we’d have two more wins if we have all those guys on defense, especially Javier Diaz (torn knee ligament) in the defensive backfield and Jeremiah Sanchez (broken collarbone) at linebacker. We lost both in the first two games. Mateo Granados, a really good linebacker, has played in just half the games.”
Everybody associated with the Rebels knows winning is difficult at Boone County, but this is ridiculous. Nevertheless, the Rebels soldier on with a stable of plucky players trying to make the most of a challenging situation. They take on Dixie in a 7 p.m. Friday road game, beginning a grueling season-ending stretch run. Dixie Heights is 3-4. Boone County is 2-5.
Rebels two-way lineman Tao Mulvaney, a junior, is all about it. “I feel confident we can get after it,” he said. “I’m confident we can run the football.”
Mulvaney has more than 1,000 reasons to believe. Johnson, a shifty 5-foot-9, 190-pound runner, surprised some observers with 1,188 yards on the ground last season. It was the first 1,000-yard rushing season at Boone since 2010. It was so nice Johnson did it twice. He leads all northern Kentucky players with 1,205 rushing yards this year. These totals are more than grand. Johnson is the KHSAA Class 5A district rushing leader. He’s second in all of Class 5A in rushing yards but first in rushing yards per game.
“My ability to make defenses miss and then run them over makes me what I am,” Johnson said.
Statewide, he is sixth in rushing yards and fourth in yards per game. Over the last three seasons, Johnson has amassed 2,853 yards rushing.
“His big jump started before his junior year. He went into the offseason completely serious, almost like a mad man,” said Court, a physical education instructor and health teacher at Boone. “He did everything he could in the weight room and did a lot of extra stuff on the side, and he really changed his body and came out stronger and faster. This year, he took on more of a leadership role and had another great offseason.”
As a result, Johnson is much more efficient with the football. He is averaging a whopping 9.2 yards per carry, almost double last season’s 5.1. Johnson is churning out 171 yards per contest after averaging 108 per game last year.
“He’s doing great,” Mulvaney said. “He’s been able to get some long runs.”
Johnson has put together a pair of 200-yard rushing efforts including a season-high 232 in a Week 1 win over Holmes. With 11 touchdowns, he’s scored 40 percent of the Rebels’ points this season. “The big thing is his patience,” Court said. “He’s doing a much better job of letting the line develop the blocking, seeing the hole and hitting it.”
This is where the blockers come in. It’s a collection of five new starters doing yeoman’s work under the direction of offensive line coach Trevan Brown. He’s a Boone graduate who played on an NCAA Division I offensive line at Miami University. Mulvaney, who has the most experience, anchors the group at left tackle. Senior Landyss Kelly returned after two years away from the team to man left guard.
“Trevan is so great with this group,” Court said. “He’s our main guy in the weight room, too, which has really helped Mulvaney and Kelly. From a pure skill standpoint, Mulvaney is our best offensive lineman but getting Kelly back was huge. The guy moves bodies.”
Junior Xavier Slusher and senior Jacob Straub are at center. Slusher is the starter and Straub comes in for goal-line and heavy-package formations. Ben Contreras-Wilson is at right guard and fellow junior Jayden Pointer lines up at right tackle. The Rebels deploy mainstay Spencer Blust, a sophomore, at tight end. Senior reserve Hunter Rose comes in for heavy packages.
“It’s a young line so we do tend to lean on the left side, but we can run up the middle and to the right, so you can’t just load up,” Court said. “We had one linebacker for Scott with 22 tackles in that game, but we weren’t picking on that particular kid. The gameplan was we had to run to the left.”
Not only was Johnson the primary rusher against Scott, he also was the emergency fill-in quarterback. “He actually passed for around 50 yards,” said Court, who’s had to limit Johnson’s reps on defense to keep him fresh over the long haul. Johnson had six tackles and a fumble recovery in a win over St. Henry. He had eight stops and a forced fumble vs. Newport Central Catholic.
“I feel good about being dedicated,” Johnson said. “I feel that the team around me is dedicated. I’m very appreciative of my offensive line.”
Johnson has been such a force that Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati and McPherson College in Kansas are among those making him offers.
While resting Johnson when he can on defense and managing the deluge of injuries, Court is relying on Contreras-Wilson on the defensive line, freshman Eli Applegate at middle linebacker and senior Ryan Scott in the secondary.
“I’ve learned a lot about the players,” said Court, who could have as many as 15 seniors next season. “The good news is the offensive line is junior-loaded. We’ll have guys coming back from injury. We know we lose Malik so it could be running back by committee. You just don’t have that many Malik Johnsons come around that often.”
