FORT WALTON BEACH — Fort Walton Beach football is back.
Back to being fun. Back to being disciplined. Back to being well-coached and held accountable by Josh Pulliam and his crew. Most importantly, the Vikings are back to putting up crooked numbers on the scoreboard and winning games.
Elijah Donson scored twice as part of a backfield that rushed for over 200 yards and had three ball carriers find the end zone, Lavin McDaniel and Cannon Wilbur connected for two touchdowns and the Vikings’ offseason growth showed in Friday’s 41-6 running-clock win over Pensacola High at Steve Riggs Stadium.
Come postgame time, the Fort Walton Beach locker room turned into a club, players danced and sang and all was right for a program that at its height was the team to beat in the 1990s, but hasn’t had a winning season since 2012.
“It feels great,” Pulliam said. “I’m proud of these guys. Pensacola is a solid football team, so I’m thankful to see what we saw tonight with everything we went through in the offseason. We still had some mistakes out there that we have to fix, like some penalties that were frustrating. We’ll clean that up starting tomorrow but we’ll enjoy this tonight with a little Club F-dub action.”
“Chop wood and carry water” is Fort Walton Beach’s motto. Blue collar and ego-free is the vibe. Come Friday, against a program coming off a 2-9 playoff campaign, Fort Walton Beach put it all together.
Not only were the 41 points the most points scored by a Vikings team since 2023, the running clock represented the first since a 35-0 win over Bay that same year. It’s the first time since 2020 the Vikings are 1-0, making them the lone Okaloosa County team to emerge from the season opener unbeaten.
“It’s a great feeling,” said Wilbur, who had touchdown receptions of 30 and 10 yards. “It’s been a long time since we’ve come out Week 1 with a W, especially with that kind of score. It felt good to contribute those two touchdowns. It was a good time.”
A good time aided by the chemistry he’s built with McDaniel.
“The connection goes deep because we’ve been playing baseball together since we were in little league,” Wilbur said. “It translates from the baseball to the football field and we’re good friends. We talk every day.”
“I look to my right and I see Cannon, and I can just trust him,” McDaniel said. “I’ve known him since I was little and he’s just someone I can rely on. He’s a leader on the field, in the weight room and in the classroom. He’s that dude I want on my team.”
Opening up the passing game was a backfield that celebrated a pair of 12- and- 1-yard touchdown runs by Dobson, a 44-yard touchdown by Ty’Shaun Montgomery and a 6-yard touchdown by Carlos White.
“We’re stacked at running back,” McDaniel said. “We have weapons, all different types of running backs who can run the ball in different ways and our O-line, big shout out to them tonight. They really manned up and put their foot on the other team’s toe and moved them.”
Echoed Wilbur: “We got a lot of weapons back there, and it’s good to put the ball in each of their hands and see it work out for us.”
Defensively, the Vikings would’ve had a shutout had it not been for a penalty in the end zone celebrating a pass breakup. The coaches, as was the case all night, immediately used it as a teaching moment. The next Pensacola drive, Eli Perry hauled in a beautiful over-the-shoulder interception.
“I saw guys flying around to the ball and working together to make sure all their fits were correct,” Pulliam said. “And that was really what I wanted, fly around and not overthink things. I’m really proud of those guys.”
“I don’t think we had any single tackles for real,” added Judah Witherspoon-Seay, who had a pair of sacks. “We had guys flying to the ball, jumping in there and helping make tackles. It wasn’t one guy, it was everyone.
“We’re not surprised at all we’re here. We treat everybody as the big game. And we’ll do the same next week with South Walton.”
South Walton 50, Gulf Breeze 0
Setting up a matchup between 1-0 teams Friday, Aug. 28 at Steve Riggs Stadium, the Seahawks welcomed their promotion to 3A with a running-clock win over visiting Gulf Breeze.
After talks all offseason of a 10-0 regular season, Gabe Parenton had three touchdowns (two rushing, one receiving), UConn commit JD Brown threw for and rushed for a touchdown, Carter Hawk rushed for a score and South Walton’s defense had a sack amid the prized shutout.
“Our defense played well. They’re clicking right now,” South Walton coach Phil Tisa said. “They made some big hits, got some turnovers, so I’m really impressed by the way they’re playing early on.”
Prattville 49, Niceville 7
The visiting Lions entered Eagle Stadium with an all-star squad of 32 transfers and, depending on who you talk to, anywhere from 16 to 19 D-I players. They looked the part in building a 42-7 halftime lead that led to a running clock out of the halftime locker rooms.
But, for a brief moment, Eagle Stadium was electric when freshman Jaxon Dark took a toss in backfield and fired a 20-yard strike to Caleb Leonard in the back of the end zone to knot the score at 7-all. That’d be Niceville’s lone celebration for Adron Robinson’s debut, a loss that says little about the state of the Eagles program and more about the strength of Prattville and its ability to bring in talent.
Niceville welcomes West Florida for Thursday night football at Eagle Stadium on Aug. 27.
Lincoln 13, Crestview 10
Manwell Robinson found the back of the end zone and Elijah Rice split the uprights on a field goal attempt to give the Bulldogs a 10-0 lead at Jack Foster Stadium, but the Trojans stormed back with 13 unanswered and walked off the road win with a field goal.
The Bulldogs travels to Enterprise (Alabama) next Friday to face the Wildcats, who beat Choctaw in last year’s regular-season finale and opened 2026 with a 40-38 win over Pike Road.
Walton 52, West Florida 7
Less than 20 seconds into their opener, Walton trailed West Florida 7-0 after giving up a touchdown on the opening kickoff. But, channeling the frustration of last year’s 35-6 loss to the Argonauts, the Braves got four touchdown passes from Whitton West and a pair of Rodney Clinch rushing scores as part of 52 unanswered points.
Statement made.
“As a program, we have certain goals we want to accomplish this year and we’re a driven team, so we don’t want to be content over this win,” Walton coach Jay Lindsey said. “This is not the highlight of our season but a starting point.”
Rashawn Gundrum added a rushing touchdown and West spread the love to his deep receiving corps, finding Eli Odom, Tristian Powell, Since Williams and Izzy Holmes for touchdowns to go along with his 100 rushing yards.
Walton hosts Arnold (1-0) Friday, Aug. 28.
Other Scores
Arnold 27, Freeport 21
Florida High 37, Navarre 13
Destin 53, Port St. Joe 13
Jay 35, Baker 6
This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: FWB football lone Okaloosa team to begin 1-0; SoWal and Walton win
Reporting by Seth Stringer, Northwest Florida Daily News / Northwest Florida Daily News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Seth Stringer, Northwest Florida Daily News | USA TODAY Network
