This Week in TXHSFB: Prosper Rock Hill Hires 1st Coach; Cisco Moves Quickly; Updates on West Mesquite, Belton and Tyler Lee

Tyler Lee (Photo by John Murphy)

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Belton With a Pair of Job Openings

Belton ISD has been conducting interviews since early December for its two vacant head football coaching positions. Belton High opened up when Sam Skidmore moved into the district athletic director full time, while Lake Belton, a new school that will start playing in a UIL district in 2022, is searching for its first head coach. The smart money says one of these jobs will be filled by an internal candidate, but that one of the jobs will be filled by an external candidate. Expect an announcement for both jobs at the January 20th Belton ISD school board meeting.

 

Keller Timber Creek Looking for Second Head Coach in School History

Keller Timber Creek has only had one head coach in school history as Kevin Golden started the program up at the sub-varsity level in 2009. Golden told Dave Campbell’s Texas Football in early December that he’d be stepping down after 10 seasons at the helm. Keller ISD job openings aren’t common as coaches tend to go to KISD and stay for a while, and with a new district athletic director it’ll be interesting to see if they go with what most consider a strong internal candidate or if they look outside.

 

Tyler Lee Update

According to multiple sources, Tyler ISD has visited with and interviewed multiple candidates for the vacancy at Tyler Lee and those interviews are continuing this week. There’s no set format for the interview process and the field could be narrowed and candidates brought in for a second round, but there’s a chance there will only be one round of interviews. The goal looks to be to have a candidate in place in time for UIL Realignment on February 3. TISD has two board meetings set this month - one for the 16th and one for the 23rd - so a candidate is likely to be presented to the board at that time.

 

West Mesquite Nearing a Hire  

Shortly before Thanksgiving break, word leaked that West Mesquite and head coach Jeff Neill had parted ways after seven seasons. Neill posted a 39-35 overall record, but the Wranglers had seen their share of struggles and staff turnover the past couple of seasons. This will be the first big solo hire for new athletic director Kody Groves, who was involved in the Mesquite Horn hire last offseason along with outgoing athletic director Steve Bragg. Interviews for the job were conducted during the Christmas break and the profile for the leading candidates appeared to be similar and that’s a younger coach with a lot of energy. We are expecting a current Central Texas head coach to be named this week for this job.  

 

Prosper Rock Hill Has Their Guy

Prosper Rock Hill, who will debut in varsity football this season at the Class 5A-Division II level, appears to have its first head coach named. The name should be made public at the January Prosper ISD board meeting, but all indications are a current offensive coordinator from the DFW area will be named as the school’s first ever head coach.

 

Several Openings in the Alamo City

It looks like it’s going to be a busy year in San Antonio when it comes to the coaching carousel as several jobs in the city are already open. In San Antonio ISD, Highlands and Sam Houston have both opened up. Former Highlands HC Hank Willis resigned to be closer to his family in DFW, while longtime Sam Houston coach Melton Schultz, who was an assistant but got promoted to head football coach three years ago, resigned. In addition, new program San Antonio YMLA will be looking for its first head coach. In North East ISD, MacArthur is open after Ben Cook, who was arrested in October and was on leave, was officially let go. Down at San Antonio Southwest, Matt Elliott announced his retirement at the end of the season. Elliott led Southwest to the area playoffs last year despite seeing its talent split with the opening of Legacy High School. Alamo Heights, which may be the most attractive of the openings in San Antonio, opened after the retirement of head coach Mike Norment.

 

El Paso Chapin An Attractive Job in the Sun City

For the first time in 13 seasons, El Paso Chapin will have a new head football coach after Rene Hernandez resigned his post. Hernandez posted an impressive 99-51 mark in his time at Chapin High School, which is unique in that it is located on post at Fort Bliss. Being a high school on base poses some unique challenges due to the transient nature of the potential students, who are often at the whim of their parents orders from the Army, but Chapin traditionally has been a successful program in the city as they usually have a solid core of athletes and the drop from Division I to Division II should benefit them as well.

 

Bonham and Early Move Quickly

Both Bonham and Early quickly moved to bring in new head football coaches for the 2020 season and both are in place to run a full offseason this spring. Bonham brought in Melissa assistant head coach Kyle Dezern in early December to replace John Fish, who went into the ministry after two seasons as a head coach. Early quickly promoted DC Daniel Price to head coach the same day it was announce head coach Blake Sandford was moving into a role in Early ISD administration.

 

Muleshoe Makes a Move

Muleshoe has seen its share of struggles the past two seasons as the once proud program has just one win in its last 20 games. The district made a move before Christmas vacation to reassign head coach Lee Walker after two years. The question now is which direction the district decides to go in looking for its next head coach? Muleshoe has lots of guys with ties in the coaching ranks across the state (and of course in the Big 12 as well), so it’ll be interesting to see how the network gets going on this one.

 

Darrell Daily Retires at Abernathy

After over 30 years as a coach and 11 seasons as a head coach, Abernathy head coach Darrell Daily announced his retirement via twitter on Tuesday. Daily posted an impressive 104-33 record as a head coach in 11 years at Abernathy, including a 12-2 mark this past season and in 2016 a 12-3 record in which Abernathy advanced to the state semifinals. Daily, whose son Bryson Daily graduates this year and will attend Army, will now have more free time on his hands to head up to West Point and watch Bryson compete at the FBS level.

 

Cisco Stays In-House

Cisco head coach Brent West announced shortly after the Loboes third round playoff loss to Canadian that he was moving into an AD only role after a wildly successful 19-year run where he posted a 202-43 overall record and led Cisco to five state title games and a 2013 state championship. CISD as expected stayed in-house with the hire promoting DC Kevin Stennett to the role of head football coach. He takes over a team that was 11-2 a year ago and is dropping down to Class 2A-Division I where they will immediately be considered a favorite to make some playoff noise in 2020.

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It’s officially clinic season in the state of Texas and if you have coaching clinic information that we are missing below by all means send it our way! You can e-mail it to me at matt.stepp@texasfootball.com or reach out to me on twitter @Matt_Stepp817.

 

January 17-18: Piney Woods Clinic, Longview

January 17-18: Coastal Bend Clinic, Corpus Christi

January 17-18: Alamo City Clinic, New Braunfels

January 18: Valley Ranch Coaches Clinic, Porter

January 23-24: Golden Triangle Clinic, Beaumont

January 24-26: DFW Clinic, Grapevine

January 24-26: City of Palms Clinic, McAllen

February 7-9: Lone Star Clinic, College Station

February 12: 1st 2020 NTFCA Coaches' Clinic, North Richland Hills

February 14: Hill Country Clinic, Fredericksburg

February 14-15: South Plains Clinic, Lubbock

February 19: 2nd 2020 NTFCA Coaches' Clinic, Fort Worth

February 21-22: Central Texas Clinic, Waco

February 22: Highway 5 Clinic, Melissa

February 26: 3rd 2020 NTFCA Coaches' Clinic, Denton

March 4: 4th 2020 NTFCA Coaches' Clinic, Dallas

May 1-2: El Paso Football Clinic, El Paso

May 15-16: I-45 Clinic, The Woodlands

June 11-13: Angelo Football Clinic, San Angelo

July 19-21: 2020 THSCA Coaches Convention & Coaching School, San Antonio

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Matt Stepp is the Texas High School Football Inside for Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. Find him on Twitter: @Matt_Stepp817.

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