Twenty years after winning T.R. Miller’s third state championship in football, the 1991 T.R. Miller Tiger squad will be honored and recognized Friday, Sept. 23 at the T.R. Miller against Andalusia football game.
Also the team will have a special championship celebration Saturday, Sept. 24.
The Tiger team went 14-0 defeating Deshler 46-6 in Brewton to win the state championship. The 1991 team scored 392 total points that season for an average of 28 points a game while allowing only 109 total points for 7.8 a game.
The team pitched four shutouts and allowed one touchdown or less in nine of the 14 games.
“We are going to have a tailgate party for them at 5 p.m. by the field house that Friday night against Andalusia,” T.R. Miller Tiger head coach Jamie Riggs said. “At 6:30 p.m., we will have some information about the team and recognize the players and cheerleaders. On Saturday at noon, in the lunchroom, we will have lunch for them. Then at 1 p.m. we will have a championship celebration program and at that time, we will have some speakers and a video in the auditorium. That will last a couple of hours. Some of them have shirts and we will give them a copy of the video.”
Riggs said the team was that they played well every week.
“They did not have an off week,” Riggs said. “Early in the year, our defense held us out early. They played really well because the offense was a little slow coming around. Then when we got in the playoffs, our offense got in stride. I think we had over 900 yards of offense in the last two games—semifinals and the championship game. I know James Fountain had over 475 yards in the last two games. That is pretty good. He 276 against Handley in the semifinals then 200 in the state championship game against Deshler.”
Riggs said another thing about the team was the loss to Deshler the year before in the championship game.
“We lost to them in 1990,” Riggs said. “We lost in overtime up there. The next year, they are undefeated and we are undefeated and we meet again which was pretty unusual for both of us to be undefeated again. We were both undefeated the year before. So then we go the entire schedule and end up playing again. They had won 28-straight games and we won the game 46-6. That is pretty good for a team that had won 28-straight games and we beat them by 40 points. We really played terrific in that championship game that night.”
Riggs said it meant more because they loss the year before to Deshler.
“Our whole community was just really excited about the game being here and getting another chance,” Riggs said. “You don’t get a second chance many times in life and all those guys on that team got a second chance. It was pretty neat.”