LONGMONT — Wayne Voorhees, no stranger to expansion prep football programs, hasn’t forgotten what it took to establish his Horizon Hawks when they were new on the scene in the early 1990s.
Voorhees, a former middle linebacker and 1991 Horizon graduate, suffered through a couple of 2-8 seasons over the Hawks’ first two campaigns. But then he and his fellow seniors had enough of getting run over.
“We were a 6A program, and we got the tar beat out of us those first couple years,” Voorhees recalled. “But when I was a senior, we went 12-2 and went to the state semifinals. We learned how to get into the weight room, and we decided we were done getting pushed around. We bought into that and had a great senior year.
“We understood the progress and the plan that was several years in the making.”
Voorhees applied that same blueprint to his two head coaching stops, first at Legacy (2003-17) and then for the last eight years at Riverdale Ridge.
Upon taking the job at the new Thornton school in 2018, Voorhees’ Ravens went 0-8 in Class 2A with a minus-294 point differential. Riverdale Ridge lost its top two quarterbacks to injury in the opening game, and Voorhees was coaching all freshmen and sophomores — many of whom had never played football before.
But Voorhees never lost faith in his vision, and now it’s starting to pay off. After going 8-3 in Class 3A in 2023 and then 9-2 last season in their first year in 4A — both resulting in playoff appearances — the Ravens are 7-0 this season following Friday’s 56-14 demolition of Longmont at Everly-Montgomery Field.
This fall, like his first one at Riverdale Ridge, Voorhees is coaching with a backup QB. Starter Jaaziah Gallegos suffered a season-ending knee injury in the second game against Poudre, forcing the Ravens to turn to sophomore Ricky Weeks.
“Weeks hasn’t missed a beat,” said senior wideout/safety Jeter McArthur, who led the team with 81.2 receiving yards per game and seven TDs coming into Friday. “Right after he came in against Poudre, he made back-to-back plays where he had gotten out of the pocket, gotten out of a tackle, and was able to throw the ball downfield for a completion.
“There was also one throw where the rush came from both sides, he stepped up into the pocket, and was able to chuck it downfield to me for a TD as he got blown up. That’s what a leader does.”
While Weeks is showing promise slinging the rock, the Ravens defense has been stout.
The senior core of linebacker Carson Coleman, tackle Jack Talley, end Amari Collins, cornerback Isaak Alvidrez and safety Walker Magoon have allowed just 45 points over seven games. That unit, in addition to Weeks’ emergence, is why the Ravens are confident they can make a run at their first league title this season.
Standing in the way of that goal is defending 4A champion Broomfield, which beat Riverdale Ridge 22-13 at Elizabeth Kennedy Stadium last season. This year, Riverdale Ridge hosts Broomfield on Oct. 24 in the penultimate game of the regular season.
“We played them pretty tough at their place last year, and I don’t think that our kids fully believed that we were capable of beating them,” Voorhees said. “When the game was all said and done, we were right there with them and understood we were not very far away from beating them.
“Our players know that’s what we’re looking at: Our quest has been to win a league championship, and that goes through Broomfield.”
With that in mind, and with the Ravens eying the program’s first playoff victory and a deeper run come November, Voorhees isn’t allowing his team to let up off the gas. The program’s been further motivated by the success of the athletes around them in their halls, like the girls basketball squad that won a Class 4A title in 2024 and the softball team that won the Class 5A championship later that calendar year.
After a 9-1 regular season in ’24, Riverdale Ridge was upset 17-14 by Golden in the opening round of the playoffs. That’s why Voorhees is imploring his team to constantly “make that exit sign brighter and brighter” in the minds of its opponent each week. The Ravens did just that on Friday while overwhelming Longmont, which was down 42-7 by halftime.
“We overlooked Golden last year, and we got complacent during the season,” Isaak Alvidrez said. “That’s just not going to happen again. (Hence the emphasis) on the exit sign — that’s all about us continuing to push, continuing to throttle and get on them, until that exit sign in the back of their mind becomes impossible to ignore. If we take that mindset into the playoffs, we’ll be a tough team to beat.”
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