Grant Hindsley

American Fork will play for the state 5A football title on Friday for the first time in 52 years. Bingham is the defending 5A champion, having won four state championships since 2000.

Like the players on his football team, American Fork coach Aaron Behm is sailing in uncharted waters this week as the Cavemen prepare to take on Bingham for the 5A championship on Friday.

When Behm was in high school back in Illinois, his team won the school’s first-ever playoff game when he was a senior.

After completing his education, Behm spent six years as an assistant at another Illinois school. During that stretch, the program he was part of reached the quarterfinals one time, which in Illinois is the third round.

“It’s a lot harder to make the playoffs there because there are so many more schools,” he said. “That was a big achievement for us.”

Behm applied for the job at American Fork when former coach Davis Knight announced plans to retire. This is his fifth season in the post.

The program has struggled to compete in an ultra-tough region environment. Since Behm arrived, the Cavemen had qualified only once for the tournament before this season, in 2011, when they lost in the first round.

In the five years before that, they’d only advanced twice, losing in the first round in 2005. In 2007, American Fork made a nice run but lost in the semifinals to Layton. It’s been decades since the Cavemen have made it to the finals.

Behm said the foundation for the success of this season began with a decision he made three years ago.

Now the team’s offensive coordinator, Mike Empey was on the interview committee when Behm was applying for the job. A former BYU player with years of experience coaching at the D-I college level, Empey and Behm continued to develop their relationship after he got the job.

GRANT HINDSLEY, Daily Herald

After his first two years here, Behm said, “I wanted to change from a triple-option offense to something that would feature more of the athletic abilities of our kids.”

Enter Empey, who took on the challenge of moving the scheme in a new direction.

On the other side of the ball, Behm has relied on Jon Lehman, a former college teammate of his.

There were two openings in the social studies department when Behm was hired; he took one, and persuaded his friend, then a graduate assistant at a D-III school in California, to apply for the other.

“We didn’t just play together; we went to history classes together, too,” Behm said.

Lehman got the job and has been Behm’s defensive coordinator ever since.

“I knew he was the guy I wanted all along,” the coach said.

Behm is quick to deflect credit for his team’s success to his staff, particularly these two.

“They put in so much time and have our kids so prepared, it’s been fun all year to see what happened on Friday,” he said.

Aside from that though, he said the approach of this group of players has been what’s made the difference in the results the team has achieved.

“They are extremely focused,” Behm said. “Not just now or just this week, but since we first started together in the summer. They’ve had the state championship as their goal, and now they have the chance to make that dream a reality.”

The coach said if we walked by the weight room at the appropriate times of day, we’d find it jam-packed with players watching film. When regular practice is over, he said we’d still see James Empey out there practicing his footwork, and other players working on skills.

“They have zeroed in all year on doing what they can to put themselves in this position,” he said. “They are very talented, but when you add the work ethic, that’s what’s put them over the top.”

He said they recognized from the beginning that they had the skill guys and the linemen to compete.

“In Week 1, we thought we played Brighton well enough to win,” Behm said. “I think that’s when the kids really understood their potential. From Week 2 on, they’ve never let up.

“There’s definitely a tide of momentum we’re riding right now,” the coach said. “They’ve learned to win by finishing plays, sustaining blocks, jumping on the opportunities provided by the other team’s mistakes, all those little things that make the difference.”

In addition, the squad has 22 seniors, and Behm said the juniors and sophomores really look up to them.

“They’re good leaders,” he said. “They really treat the underclassmen right, and those kids want to win for the seniors.”

The coach said every program talks about improving every week, but his team really has because of how hard the young men have worked.

“They are playing their best football right now,” he said. “They’ve earned the right to get this chance.”