Columbus' Grayson Rigdon after the Class 3A Division I Championship Thursday night at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. (Michel Alfaro/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

ARLINGTON — A second consecutive state championship wasn’t in the cards for the Malakoff Tigers.

Instead, it was the Columbus Cardinals — making the first championship game appearance in program history — who dominated on both sides of the football on the way to a 48-14 win over the Tigers in the Class 3A Division I Championship on Thursday night at AT&T Stadium.

“We got beat by a better team tonight,” Malakoff head football coach Jamie Driskell said. “They’re really good, and we knew that coming in. We knew we had to play just about perfect. I think we had to lean on so many guys for the last several games that had to play both ways. We weren’t very deep this year or near as deep as we were last year. Not necessarily tonight as far as getting tired tonight, but I think the grind of the whole season and the playoff run we’ve had, I think our guys that had to play the most plays, I think we just ran out of steam. Plus, when you play a better team and all that, it’s a recipe for a butt whipping, and that’s what we got.

“They’re the total package as far as offensively and defensively. I think they played lights out tonight. It was just a tough matchup for us tonight. Our motto this week was empty the tank, and I definitely think we emptied the tank.”

The loss ended a 31-game winning streak that dated back to 2022 for Malakoff, which entered Thursday night outscoring opponents 717-160.

A Columbus offense that has now scored 838 points this season used the dynamic group of Texas Christian University signee Adam Schobel at quarterback, Wyoming commit Grayson Rigdon at running back and the receiving trio of Camdon Pitchford, Elijah Usher and Braylon Fisher to compile 428 yards of offense and find the end zone seven times.

“We played a great game against a great team,” said Columbus head football coach Matt Schobel, a former tight end for the Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles. “I have a lot of respect for that program, the way they do it. They are well-coached with tough, resilient kids, and you saw that on display.”

Adam Schobel was 15 of 21 for 261 yards and two touchdowns, and he ran for 37 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries to earn Offensive MVP honors. Pitchford had seven catches for 66 yards and a score, Usher five grabs for 106 yards and Fisher two receptions for 81 yards and a touchdown.

Rigdon had 18 carries for 119 yards and four touchdowns.

While it was the first state championship for the Cardinals, the win made it 4-for-4 for Rigdon, who won state championships at Strawn (2021) and Benjamin (2022 and 2023) in Six-Man before moving to Columbus for 11-man football for his senior season. Rigdon’s older brothers, Chandler and Wesley, played at Cayuga. His older brother, Matthew, played at Carlisle and was the All-East Texas Boys Basketball Offensive Player of the Year in 2021. Grayson Rigdon went to eighth grade at Carlisle.

Rigdon got the scoring started with a 3-yard touchdown run less than three minutes into the game.

Malakoff then went 80 yards on six plays to tie the score at 7 with 6:35 left in the first quarter on a 4-yard run by Jerrion Hall. The Tigers finished the first half with 72 yards of offense.

The Cardinals added a 2-yard touchdown run by Rigdon and a 32-yard touchdown pass from Adam Schobel to Fisher on the final play of the first quarter to push the score to 21-7. The second quarter featured rushing touchdowns by Adam Schobel and Rigdon to make the score 34-7 at halftime.

Rigdon scored the only touchdown of the third quarter, and Adam Schobel connected with Pitchford for a 15-yard score with 8:37 remaining.

Malakoff added a 12-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a 3-yard touchdown run by Jason Tennyson with 2:39 on the clock. Tennyson, who ran for 1,389 yards and 26 touchdowns on 213 carries as a sophomore before tearing his ACL on the first day of practice in 2023 and missing the entire state championship season. This year, Tennyson finished with 177 carries for 1,803 yards and 26 touchdowns after finishing with 14 carries for 55 yards and a touchdown Thursday.

Malakoff finished with 239 yards of offense. The 14 points was the Tigers’ lowest scoring total since last year’s 14-7 win over Franklin in the Class 3A Division I Championship.

“We had that good first drive then they changed some stuff up,” Driskell said. “They started stunting more and bringing some guys more and we didn’t do a very good job of picking it up. They went to a different coverage on us and mixed some things up and got us on our heels a little bit. I feel like our kids kind of panicked a little in that second quarter when things were not going well, and we weren’t moving the ball. Then of course, they were scoring at will, and it caused us to not play as well as we probably are. It was just a tough night for us. We got beat by a better team.”

The Cardinals (15-1) were led defensively by Defensive MVP John Schobel, a TCU signee who finished with 10 tackles, three sacks and three tackles for loss.

Quarterback Mike Jones finished with 33 yards passing and 85 yards rushing in the final game of his high school career.

The 48 points was the most allowed in a game by Malakoff since Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders threw six touchdown passes in a 56-32 win by a Deion Sanders-coached Cedar Hill Trinity Christian over the Tigers on Sept. 11, 2020.

Malakoff (15-1) went 31-1 over the past two seasons and 44-3 since 2022, which included being a state champion, a state finalist and a state semifinalist.

“This group of seniors, hats off to them,” Driskell said. “They’re just a great group of kids. They’re fun to be around. They’ve done so much for this program in the last three years for sure. It starts with Mikey at the quarterback position. He’s our leader. We have 16 seniors, and it’s just a good group of kids. I just love them to death.”

Malakoff’s seniors are Jaxson Jedlicka, Jack Hustead, Lukas Williams, Chris Thompson, Parker Poteete, Mike Jones, Kayland Davis, Evan Loper, Jason Tennyson, Zainnen Jones, James Studley, Michael Elliot, Shawn Meadows, Andrew Adams, Jamyron Walker and Hunter Reeves.