Iowa Yellow Jackets End a 53-Year Parish Title Drought

Iowa High beat North DeSoto 50-43 on Dec. 12, 2025, and won the first football state title in school history. The No. 2 Yellow Jackets finished 14-0 in the LHSAA Non-Select Division II game at the Caesars Superdome and ended a 53-year Calcasieu Parish drought that dated to W.O. Boston’s 11-6 win over Haynesville in 1972.

Jeremiah Bushnell scored three touchdowns and was named the game’s most outstanding player. Head coach Tommy Johns, nine seasons into the job, said, “It’s kind of hard to imagine right now.”

Nine Lead Changes, Then a Flag and a Kneel

Friday afternoon was the only meeting of unbeaten teams in that Prep Classic. Iowa had never played for a state football title. North DeSoto, 13-0 entering the day, had been to the final in 2022 and had knocked the Jackets out of the 2022 semifinals, 38-9, and the 2023 quarterfinals, 45-21.

Bushnell, a Houston signee, scored on a 19-yard catch from Lawston Broussard, a 45-yard reverse, and a fumble he recovered in the end zone after a 49-yard completion. “I’ve been waiting for this game for a long time,” he said. “It doesn’t feel real.”

Kaston Lewis ripped off a 59-yard touchdown and later a 42-yarder. J’Vien Adams, the program’s all-time leading rusher, scored from 12 yards. The lead changed nine times. North DeSoto went in front 36-34 on Kenny Thomas’s 27-yard run with 43 seconds left in the third quarter, and Iowa answered in two plays, Lewis through the middle and Lewis again on the two-point run, for a 42-36 edge with 18 seconds left in the quarter.

Twenty seconds into the fourth, Luke Delafield hit Colton LaCour for 41 yards and a 43-42 Griffin lead. Broussard kept it 11 yards to cap a seven-play, 80-yard drive, Lewis ran in the two-point play, and Iowa led 50-43 with 8:38 left.

Iowa then stopped North DeSoto on downs. A late-hit flag moved the Jackets. On fourth down near midfield, with 2:19 left, the snap sailed over the punter’s head. He got the kick away. Officials threw roughing the kicker, Iowa kept the ball, and Broussard took a knee. North DeSoto never ran another play. The Griffins had a case that a player chasing a bad snap is a runner, not a punter. Iowa was already up a score, had converted all four of its fourth downs, and had held the ball 30:19 to 17:41. The flag still ended the argument.

Johns said the win became real when Broussard took that last knee.

The Last Parish Title Belonged to a School That No Longer Exists

Calcasieu Parish had sent teams to New Orleans and brought none of them home with a football trophy since December 1972. W.O. Boston, a Lake Charles school that no longer exists, beat two-time champion Haynesville 11-6 that night. Wiley Stewart’s Panthers finished 13-1. The 1972 Class 2A championship game list still carries that 11-6 line, the last parish football title before Iowa.

THE PARISH WAIT

1. 1972: W.O. Boston beats Haynesville 11-6 for the Class AA title.
2. 1984, 1988, 1990: Washington-Marion reaches title games and leaves without the trophy.
3. 1995: DeQuincy falls short in New Orleans.
4. 2006 and 2007: Sulphur, then Westlake, do the same.
5. 2012: Barbe, the last Calcasieu team in a final before Iowa, loses to Archbishop Rummel 35-14.
6. Dec. 12, 2025: Iowa beats North DeSoto 50-43 in the Jackets’ first title game.

Johns put the gap in plain words after the game. “It’s been about 50 years since a team from Calcasieu Parish has won a championship, and I’m glad we’re the ones to do it,” he said. Iowa, a town of 3,436 at the 2020 census, sits on the parish’s eastern edge along I-10. For most of those 53 years the Yellow Jackets were not the team anyone in Lake Charles would have picked to break it.

Kayson Foxall Carried a Panthers Legacy Into Purple and Gold

Junior Kayson Foxall carried the ball three times for four yards in the final. The number was small. The thread was not. His grandfather, Thomas Clemons, played on that 1972 Boston team and died in 2022, before he could see a grandson play for a parish title. Foxall’s great-uncle, Rev. James Clemons III, had worn Boston red in 1971, the year the Panthers went unbeaten and were barred from the playoffs.

It’s in your blood. It’s in your bones. It never goes away. He’s an extension of W.O. Boston High School football, and I’m just so proud.

Rev. James Clemons III, W.O. Boston 1971, after Iowa’s title

“That was our dream before he passed to carry on the legacy,” Foxall said. When the clock hit zero he thought of his grandfather. Clemons III said his brother would have given them one line and sent them back to work: well done, now get back to work.

Foxall called the North DeSoto game a statement. “Everybody doubted us, and we’re making sure they never do it again,” he said. Iowa had fallen short of the Dome in 2022 and 2024. This time the parish’s football map ran through a town that, Clemons III said, used to sit off it.

Why Tommy Johns’ Father Was on the Sideline

Tommy Johns is 75-27 in nine seasons as Iowa’s head coach after three years as an assistant, 12 years at the school in all. The Louisiana Sports Writers Association named him LSWA Class 4A Coach of the Year for 2025, his second such honor after the Class 3A award in 2022. He had taken the Jackets to the quarterfinals or better four straight years, including a 35-29 semifinal loss to Franklinton in 2024, and a 28-21 home semifinal win over Belle Chasse that finally put Iowa in the Dome.

His father, Mike Johns, spent 35 of 48 coaching years at three Calcasieu schools and 13 more at St. Louis Catholic. Tommy played for him at LaGrange. They coached together at St. Louis Catholic for nine years. Mike has Parkinson’s. Getting him onto the Superdome sideline for the last minutes took planning. They embraced before the team picture. “It definitely was an emotional moment,” Tommy said.

Mike had lost a 1994 title game at McNeese when LaGrange missed an extra point against Hahnville in overtime, 28-27. He told his son that if that ever happened, go for two. Tommy told him he had it, and Mike still reminds him.

Offensive coordinator Stu Cook, son of Notre Dame (Crowley) coach Lewis Cook, joined Iowa after a Thanksgiving 2019 conversation with Johns that lasted three or four hours. Cook called Iowa a throwback town, tough and loyal. Line coach Chuck Gorman told the staff the Jackets could block North DeSoto. They did. Iowa ran 56 times.

What the 50-43 Box Score Shows

The official 2025 football championship bracket lists Iowa as Non-Select Division II champion. The working sheet under that line is a track meet that Iowa won on the ground and on the clock.

TITLE GAME TEAM TOTALS

Lewis carried 15 times for 172 yards, 11.5 a try, and two scores. Adams added 24 carries for 158 yards and the 12-yard touchdown, 330 yards between them. Broussard went 11-for-15 for 183 yards and two scoring throws, plus the 11-yard winner. Bushnell caught four balls for 112 yards and ran three times for 44. Delafield threw for 233 yards and two scores, ran for 79 and another, and was named North DeSoto’s outstanding player. LaCour had six catches for 113 yards and two touchdowns. Combined, the teams piled up 1,007 yards. Landon Joseph recovered a fumble. Jordan Bushnell intercepted Delafield and set up his brother’s third-quarter score.

Iowa Sold About 1,000 Plates to Buy the Rings

The LHSAA does not pay for championship rings. Iowa had already asked the town to help get the team to New Orleans. Johns later thanked the families and businesses that covered the Dome trip so players could think about the game. The band, color guard, dance line, and cheerleaders went too. Fans were on buses by 5 a.m. Johns said that was the point: the extras walk on that field with the football team.

In the days before kickoff, the town also memorialized Wayne Dawsey, the Yellow Jackets’ public-address voice for two decades, and Russell Hardy, remembered as the school’s biggest football fan. The title week was a funeral week and a parade week at once.

HOW THE TOWN PAID FOR IT

• Dome trip: Private donations covered travel so the roster and staff could make the Prep Classic without a hole in the budget.
• Full house on the field: Band, color guard, dance line, and cheerleaders performed in the Superdome with the football team.
• Ring supper: In-Laws restaurant in Iowa donated food in February 2026, sold about 1,000 jambalaya plates against a goal of 500, and helped raise about $35,000 for rings.
• Capitol trip: The Jackets were honored at the Louisiana State Capitol in April 2026, four months after the final.

Offensive line coach Chuck Gorman said success has a price tag, and that the town steps up when the bill comes. Owner Derek Kramer said the rings were a small token the players could look at for the rest of their lives. Johns told Southwest Louisiana the championship belonged to Iowa and the whole region.

The 14-0 Roster Has Scattered

The football program is 72 years old. Its first winning season was 2000, a 34-19 playoff win over Winnsboro, then a loss to Independence. The 2025 run was the school’s 20th playoff trip and its fourth straight district title. The Iowa Yellow Jackets season history now opens with 14-0 and a state championship, then a 1-3 start through late September 2026 after the seniors left.

Bushnell finished with 2,728 career receiving yards and 32 receiving touchdowns, both school records, and enrolled at Houston. Adams graduated as the all-time rusher. Lewis, a two-way junior on the title team, stayed, put up 848 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns that season, and on June 13, 2026, committed to Texas Tech at safety. Broussard and Foxall came back as seniors. Defending a title that took 53 years to win is a different job than winning it the first time.

Foxall’s great-uncle said the 1972 Panthers would have claimed they could run this Iowa team off the field. He was laughing when he said it. The two rosters now share the only football state titles Calcasieu Parish has. One school is gone. The other finally has a trophy, a set of rings the town bought by the plate, and a two-way back still in purple who was in the backfield when the drought ended.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did Iowa High Win Its First Football State Title?

Iowa won it on Friday afternoon, Dec. 12, 2025, in the first game of day two of the LHSAA Prep Classic at the Caesars Superdome, a window that ran Dec. 11-13. It was the only title game that week between two unbeaten teams, and it was the Jackets’ first championship appearance in the 72-year history of the football program.

Which Calcasieu Parish School Won a Football Title Before Iowa?

W.O. Boston of Lake Charles, which no longer exists, won the 1972 Class AA title, 11-6 over Haynesville, and finished 13-1 under Wiley Stewart. That same calendar year the Panthers also won state championships in boys basketball and girls track. Boston had gone unbeaten in 1971 and was barred from the playoffs over an ineligible-player ruling, which is why 1972 was treated as unfinished business before Iowa ever took the field.

Who Was Named Most Outstanding Player in the Title Game?

Senior receiver Jeremiah Bushnell, a Houston signee, earned the award after four catches for 112 yards, three carries for 44 yards, and three touchdowns. He left Iowa with school career records of 2,728 receiving yards and 32 receiving touchdowns. His brother Jordan Bushnell intercepted a pass that set up one of those scores.

How Long Had Tommy Johns Been Head Coach When Iowa Won?

Nine seasons, with a 75-27 record, after three years as an assistant at the same school. The writers’ group that picks all-state teams named him Class 4A coach of the year for 2025 and had already named him Class 3A coach of the year in 2022, so the title season was his second statewide coaching award, not his first.