BOONEVILLE- Bearcats running back Dax Goff set a Booneville single-season rushing record last year and led the vaunted Booneville rushing attack to a state record single season team rushing record. The Bearcats rushed for 5,956 yards as a team which was a state single season record.
Perhaps more impressive, the Bearcats played just 14 games last season (Cedarville forfeited their game to the Bearcats). So, the state total and average yards per game that is based upon fifteen games (10 regular season games and 5 state playoff games) was actually achieved in just fourteen games for the Bearcats. Of those fourteen, Goff played in thirteen, making his single season total even more impressive.
Individually, Dax broke the Booneville single season rushing record with 2,323 yards last season. In doing so, he broke the Bearcats’ Ronnie Littleton’s record from 1978 of 1,967 yards.
As a junior, the record-breaking year in 2022 set the Booneville running back up for a much-anticipated senior season in 2023. The Bearcats will be the prohibitive choice to win the 3A-1 conference and to make another deep run in the state playoffs. And driving the Bearcats all offseason has been the mantra “unfinished business” to erase the bad memories of the state title game from a season ago. But in 2023, Booneville will be the favorite to win it all at War Memorial Stadium.
Senior Dax Goff will be an important leader for the Bearcats this season. Goff, who committed last spring to play football at Harding University in 2024, will return as a three-year starter for the Bearcats. But Goff is much more than a running back that is virtually unstoppable to opposing defenses. Goff also plays linebacker for the Bearcats and that is the position his future college coaches at Harding have plans for him to play. Harding University is an excellent match for the gifted Bearcat athlete who also holds a 4.2 high school grade point average.
Last week, RNN Sports had the pleasure of visiting with Dax over the phone for this story. Finding the opportunity to visit with him proved to be a bit of a challenge as he is a multi-sport athlete that is busy virtually all day practicing more than one sport each day. He has tremendous work ethic and puts in a full day everyday with practice and off-season conditioning. He is highly motivated, and putting in the work to be successful is just second nature to him. So, when we finally connected between football practice, basketball practice, and even golf, Dax spent about thirty minutes on the phone with me, and it was great to hear his responses and to get to know him a little better. One can hear the fierce competitiveness in his voice, and his attitude toward his approach to his preparation and conditioning. He is driven in his goals and intensity, and he is the consummate warrior and competitor.
I started our conversation by referencing a time in June of 2022 when I saw Booneville at the Charleston summer football camp. As we talked, I mentioned to Dax that Booneville impressed me that day as a team that already looked like they were in mid-season form. The Bearcats ran the ball and were very physical with their blocking, tackling, and with Dax running the football. Dax responded by saying, “This year we have been working a lot more on adding speed to my game. Last year, I was decently fast, but not like really fast. This year I am looking to add speed and not just physicality but putting on some more muscle.”
Undoubtedly, this is scary for opposing defenses to read. Dax was a devastating runner last year, and a faster and stronger Dax Goff in 2023 may set records that will not be broken for a long time.
The multi-sport, talented Goff set a single game rushing record last season against the West Fork Tigers. Goff rushed for 307 yards on just 16 carries against the Tigers. That night, Goff had long touchdown runs of 70 and 75 yards each, as well as a third long run of 63 yards. Goff’s record-breaking night broke the previous Booneville record of 298 yards that had been previously held by Colton Waters.
For the 2022 season, Goff rushed for a Booneville single season record of 2,243 yards with 27 touchdowns on 144 carries in 13 games.
Adding speed to Goff’s game will benefit him and the Bearcats this fall but will also further his development into a college football player for 2024. Goff added, “If I can get good at it now (adding speed and muscle) I will be just that much ahead when I get to college.”
But as good as Dax Goff is at running the football, his Harding coaches plan to play him at linebacker. Dax said, “I am 100 percent a linebacker (in college). I asked them if I was going to play offense or defense, and they said, “you’re a good defensive guy for us.”” As a linebacker, Dax will need his new speed to cover backs out of the backfield on passing routes and to run from sideline to sideline against college athletes who themselves possess good speed.
Dax announced his college commitment immediately following the district baseball tournament last spring. Kansas State had been talking a lot to Dax, and many fans thought his future would be as a Kansas State Wildcat. But Dax committed to Harding University, and there he will receive an excellent college education and will have the opportunity to play NCAA Division II football in a very good Bisons football program. He is very solid on his commitment to Harding and can now just concentrate on his senior year of high school. “Actually, the Kansas State coach (recruiter) was coming to Booneville for spring football practice, but I was pretty solid with Harding, and I wanted to save him a trip.”
Looking ahead to the 2023 high school season, the turnover bug has hit the coaching ranks in the 3A-1 conference. Several of the member schools have new coaches entering the 2023 season. I asked Dax what, if any, effect that might have on the Bearcats’ preparation for the upcoming conference season. Dax responded by saying, “We talked about the head coaching changes and how they could affect some of the teams that we play (in conference). I don’t know if that is going to be better or worse for them, but we are not going to change our game plan. We are just going to keep it the same.”
At the end of the 2022 season, Booneville played at home in the first round of the state playoffs against Junction City, and then played three consecutive state playoff games on the road; in some cases, in excess of three hours away from Booneville. So, when the Bearcats arrived in Little Rock in December for the state championship game, the Bearcats were playing away from home for four consecutive weeks. It was impressive that Booneville was able to travel that much to play good teams in the playoffs and make it to the championship game. That much travel is hard to do at the end of the season as player injuries continue to mount along with the fatigue of traveling.
But the Bearcats run fell just short of a state title, and that is not lost to Goff and the Bearcats. So, I asked him simply, is that the goal for 2023? Goff shared that there are a lot of newcomers to the program that he thinks will contribute next season. The team is a little younger but will be extremely talented. The Bearcats will have to be relatively injury free going throughout the season. Injuries hurt the team last year, and as it is so many times in 3A football, a good football team can fall quickly with a rash of injuries. But this writer expects the Bearcats to win the 3A-1 and to make another run to the title game in 2023.
Perhaps most impressive of Dax’s performance last year was the pressure that he carried in light of the injuries that hurt the Bearcats last season. With each injury, it became more important for Goff to have a big game and carry Booneville to a victory each week. I asked him if he felt the pressure or the expectation of others, looking to Dax to carry the load for the Bearcats. He said, “I felt some pressure, I knew I had to have a big game, but I just tried to get some momentum going for us. Once we did, we were unstoppable.”
As a football program, Booneville has never been afraid to play good non-conference opponents. Last year, it was Harding Academy. Two years ago, the Bearcats loaded their charter bus and drove to Texas to play a prominent Texas program. This year, Booneville will again play Harding Academy in their second game. “Our coach won’t back down from anybody. It’s more of a “We are Booneville, and we are going to play physical, and we are going to hit you in the mouth. Even if you win, you are going to go home with bumps and bruises.”
When I asked him about his goals for 2023, he told me that “In our locker room, there is a banner that has the score of last year’s championship score and says, “Unfinished Business.” So, the goal for this year is to blow everybody away and show them that we are back.”
As a player, individually, Dax said his goal was to break Randon Ray’s career rushing record at Booneville of 4,342 yards. Ray set the records in 2021 when he broke his father’s record that was set in 1999. Goff has rushed for 3,270 yards in his illustrious career for the Bearcats and needs just 1,073 yards this season to break Ray’s school record.
He will have the benefit of running behind a returning offensive line that has a lot of experience. In addition to his returning starters on the offensive line, Dax mentioned that there are also some transfer players from Greenwood that will contribute on the line of scrimmage. Defensively, Dax said, “We are going to have a young defense. I think we will have two or three seniors on defense. The rest will be sophomores and juniors.”
Dax is a talented athlete who will play five sports in the 2023-24 school year: football, basketball, golf, track, and baseball. Last year, he won the state indoor title in the long jump and finished second in the triple jump. Openly, he is the type of athlete that I envied when I was in school. He can walk on and play any sport and instantly play well, regardless of the sport. The type of athlete that I always wanted to be but never was. Oh well!
RNN Sports will continue to follow Dax Goff and the Booneville Bearcats all season during the 2023-24. Our contributing photojournalist, Glenn Parrish of the Booneville School District, will publish stories all throughout the year, keeping the Bearcats fans base up to date on the latest developments. I will check back in with Dax later in the football season, and RNN Sports will feature him again during the Bearcats run to the football playoffs.
We would like to thank Dax Goff again for his time and contributions to this story. We would also like to acknowledge and thank Booneville Schools Director of Communications, and RNN Sports contributor, Glenn Parrish, for his contributions to this story, as well.
And on behalf of everyone at RNN Sports, we wish Dax and the Booneville Bearcats all of the best next season!
