Farmington’s Eldridge Coaches With Faith-Based Tenacity

Audrey Eldridge recalls a tenacity based upon faith she personally witnessed in her husband, J.R. Eldridge, Farmington’s head football coach, who won his 100th game Friday, 49-22, over Pea Ridge.

During the 2018 season Arkadelphia, the defending Class 4A State champions, battled through adversity.

Winning a state championship the year before put a big target on their back, inspiring every opponent to try and take the Badgers down a notch.

Nonconference opponents Sylvan Hills (6A East) and Wynne (5A East) edged the Badgers by scores of 16-14 and 35-28 sandwiched around a 56-17 drubbing by perennial Class 6A power Benton. Next came setbacks to Nashville, 28-23, and Robinson, 42-14, leaving Arkadelphia winless and 0-2 in the 4A-7.

The family attends church regularly and Audrey noticed J.R. posted a scripture passage on the mirror from Mark 9:24, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

“Every time we’d lose a game he’d change it out on the mirror until we got 0-5 and then we won the next 10 games which is a testimony to how glorious God is for us,” Audrey said.

The Badgers who were outscored 177-96 during the five game stretch needed only three games — all wins over Fountain Lake ( 44- 0), Harmony Grove (35-6) and Ashdown (44-12) to surpass their opponents in overall points (219-195). They closed out the regular season on a roll by defeating Bauxite (24-12) and arch-rival, Malvern (66-0) to earn a playoff berth with a 5-2 conference record.

After a first round 37-0 win over Gosnell the Badgers faced and knocked off four No. 1 seeds in successive weeks. They beat Warren (41-14), Stuttgart (21-0), Shiloh Christian (30-17) and Robinson (28-0) to win the Class 4A crown.

The next day, Sunday, Dec. 9, 2018, Audrey recalls J.R. gave God the glory teaching a Sunday School class and doing a testimony about that whole football year.

That accomplishment stands unprecedented and unmatched in the annals of Arkansas high school football playoff history, and Farmington fans are more than excited to support the man who steered that ship in charge of the Cardinal program as postseason approaches.

Not since the 2015 season, their second year competing in the 5A classification, has Farmington entered week 10 with such playoff possibilities. The Cardinals under former coach Mike Adams won their final two games of the 2015 regular season over Maumelle (42-21) and Harrison (28-25) to finish 5-5 overall and in a three-way tie with a 3-4 league record for the final playoff spot belonging to the 5A West.

A coin flip to decide the issue was conducted over the telephone with no Farmington coaches or administrators present and that was how the Cardinals missed out on their first foray into postseason as a 5A football school.

Such a scenario won’t materialize this year for the Cardinals who controlled their own destiny coming into week nine. Regardless of the outcomes of Friday’s games Farmington will be the No. 3 seed from the 5A West and Cardinal fans are happy to celebrate along with Coach Eldridge getting his 100th win.