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Skyridge head coach Jon Lehman walks the sideline during the Region 4 game against American Fork in Lehi on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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Lehi head coach Ed Larson talks to his team after the 5A quarterfinal game against Box Elder in Lehi on Friday, Nov. 4, 2022.

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

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The Timpview football team runs onto the field before their game against Skyridge on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. The game was played at Mountain View due to construction on the Timpview campus.

Darnell Dickson/Daily Herald

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A first-year head coach … a last-year head coach … and a veteran head coach going for his third title in six years.

Three Utah Valley football teams made it to the final game of their respective seasons and are hoping to go out as state champs — but Skyridge, Lehi and Timpview have head coaches in very different positions in their careers.

Pioneer head coach Ed Larson is the only one to have won a state title, having coached Lehi to titles in 2017 (when the Pioneers defeated Skyride) and in 2021.

Now he is seeking back-to-back titles as Lehi gets ready to face the Thunderbirds in the 5A title game at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Friday — but is quick to emphasize that he is just a small part of the coaching effort for the Pioneers.

“I’ve been very, very blessed and fortunate to get the right guys here,” Larson said in a phone interview earlier this week. “They’re great with the kids. I told my principal about four or five years ago after the 2017 season that I could never have done it without them. I said I could go play golf two times a week and miss practice, and feel like everything’s going to run as well as if I was there. That’s how much trust I have in these guys. That is rare and is such a hard thing to find. I also want to credit their families. They put a lot of time talking to kids and working. I couldn’t be where I’m at without them, there’s no question.”

Falcon head coach Jon Lehman also feels a tremendous amount of gratitude to his family and also the Skyridge community for their support over the last six years.

He decided to step down as the head coach and move into the role of athletic director for the Falcons, meaning Friday’s 6A championship contest against Corner Canyon will be his final game as the helm.

“I would say I’m pretty grateful,” Lehman said. “Not many teams know when it’s their last game because you’ve got to make it to the finals to know that it’s your last game going in. So I’m grateful to be able to know that Saturday is going to come and I’ll be moving into a different role. But I’m also grateful that we’ve been able to have been able to spend 15 weeks with these guys. We’ve been able to earn every minute that we can together, competing and working hard and learning and growing. That’s probably my overwhelming emotion.”

He said he could recall every single defensive lineman and wide receiver and captain that he’s had in the Skyridge program since 2016, and appreciates every memory.

“We had a million challenges that we had to persevere through in the early years to continue to grow and keep pushing forward and build the program that we wanted to be a part of,” Lehman said. “A lot of my memory of it is just remembering all the really strong, great, awesome struggles that we had to break through to keep growing. We’ve had great coaches and great kids who have come through and worked like crazy.”

While his high school role is going to change, Lehman said he’s not completely done coaching football.

“I’m now going to turn my attention towards the overall school program and stuff like that, but also going to try to build a five-year-old flag football dynasty and give back to my family a little bit where I haven’t in the past,” Lehman said.

Timpview head coach Donny Atuaia is at the other end of the spectrum. He’s been a long-time coach but this is the first year he has been in charge for the Thunderbirds.

He is also in a unique situation because — for perhaps the first time in Utah history — he has both of the last two Timpview head coaches (Andy Stokes and Cary Whittingham) on his staff as assistants.

“One of the reasons we are so good is that the players have seen the coaches buy in to different roles for the team,” Atuaia said. “I’ve asked Andy about it and he says he doesn’t miss being the head coach. But he and Cary miss the Xs and Os, miss being with the boys. I coached under Coach Stokes, so the kids are familiar with both him and me.”

Atuaia said he learned a lot from Stokes and Whittingham but there were still challenges.

“Every year is different,” Atuaia said. “It comes down to the smallest things, to the details. It’s been great having the validation of Coach Stokes and Coach Whittingham. They’ve been awesome to go to.”

All three coaches want to see their teams excel on Friday and come out with wins, but they know it won’t be easy.

Both of the championship games are rematches of games that were played in Lehi, as Lehi edged Timpview in a Region 8 battle on Oct. 6 and Corner Canyon held off Skyridge, 21-17, in a Region 4 contest on Sept. 23.

All of the coaches think there is an advantage to already being familiar with what the other team likes to do, but they also recognize that this is a new opportunity and nothing that happened in the previous contest matters.

When it comes to keys to victory, Lehman, Larson and Atuaia all believe exceling in the fundamentals can’t be overstated.

“For us, our defensive front seven has to be able to stop their run game,” Larson said. “I think Timpview is very successful at running the ball, so we have to take care of that and then stop their passing game.”

Atuaia knows his Thunderbirds are talented but they also have to be able to manage their emotions.

“I think the biggest difference from this year compared to last has to be our discipline,” Atuaia said. “We already know that Lehi is a well-coached, disciplined team. It going to be important how we handle adversity in this in this game. I think it will come down to every player knowing what they have to do.”

Lehman wants to see his offense be able to move the ball consistently and avoid costly mistakes.

“Corner Canyon is really, really tough on defense,” Lehman said. “They make it hard to make that big play, the field-changing play. So we need to sustain drives and move the ball down the field. On the other side, their offensive line has been dominating the line of scrimmage, so we need to prevent that. We also need to limit their big plays. I think we are relatively evenly matched.”

The 6A state championships is scheduled to take place at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Friday at 11 a.m., with the 5A state championship kicking off at the same place at 2:30 p.m.