Dougherty coach on Friday’s signature upset, deep family ties to program

Today’s Four Questions interviewee is Dougherty coach Uyl Joyner, whose team upset previously unbeaten Cairo on a walk-off field goal Friday. The Trojans trailed 16-0 at halftime but outscored the Syrupmakers 26-7 in the final two quarters for a 26-23 win. Joyner is in his fourth season coaching Dougherty, and it’s his best by far. The Trojans went 2-9, 2-8 and 4-6 in his first three seasons. Friday’s win over then-No. 4-ranked Cairo was Joyner’s first win against a top-10 opponent since 2023.

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1. You went into halftime down 16-0. What was the feeling at that point, and what did you tell your team?

“We’ve got a resilient group, man. We done lost a lot of games the last couple of years, so that senior group, they know what it feels like when you’re defeated, but it didn’t have that type of feel to it going into the locker room. We had a lot of penalties right there in the first half that stopped a lot of our drives, and that’s what I was just telling the guys. Cairo is a great defense, now, don’t get me wrong. I felt like once we could get going offensively, I always tell them, we score in bunches. So once we get going, we’re going to get going. Defense is going to play well. The defense played well. They gave up two big plays in the first half, and both of them scored. And then the safety
that we gave up offensively. So, we knew once we could get going that we could get back into the game because we were only down two scores. And I think that opening kickoff, they muffed it, and we were there to recover it, and I think that right there gave us life, and we knew then that, ‘Okay, we can get back in this thing.’”

2. How did it actually feel when the game-winning kick went through, and you got your biggest win as a head coach?

“It felt great, man. There’s been a video floating around on social media because my brother, he’s the head coach at (crosstown rival Westover), and I had been telling him all week, ‘I think we can get them, man. I really believe,’ I said, ‘And these kids believe in it, too, that we can beat them, man,’ and when that field goal went through, I was still kind of waiting on the referees. I was like, ‘Hey, let me see these hands go up before I start celebrating.’ I saw the one on that side, and when his hands went up, I went and ran on the field, and it was just a great feeling, man. But now we’re trying not to be so caught up in that win that we forget about the next three games. So that’s what the thing is today is to come in, and let’s shrink these heads back so we can get them back in these elements and go to work.”

3. What did you see from your son and starting quarterback, Micah Joyner?

“He’s doing a good job, man. He probably had one of his better games, stats-wise. He passed for 284 (yards), and he rushed for another 145 yards, and he had two passing touchdowns. I knew he was gonna be ready to go because of the way, when he woke up that morning, he had a little bit of extra bounce in his step, I’d say. Most mornings, he’s dragging to get up. I came in to get him out of bed, but I don’t even know if I woke him up. I normally have to knock on the door, but none of that happened on Friday. He was up, ready to go. He was talking football all week. Normally, when we get in the car, I try to cut the football off and go back to being dad, but he was talking football with me all week this week, and I could tell it was something different, like ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’
And he had a couple of plays that he thought that we could run, and I could tell he was ready for the challenge. Micah is kind of different, now. When he’s going against good players, he wants to be considered one of them, too, so he can step his game up, and that No. 10 for Cairo (EDGE Stevan Thornton III) is a dang good one ... and the No. 4 (RB Bryian Duncan Jr.) over there, ‘If I’m gonna be on the field with these guys, I’ve got to step my game up and show that I belong.’ And I think that was the mindset that our whole team had. They want to show that we belong in a conversation with some of the better teams.”