When Allen’s head football coaching job opened up a couple of weeks ago after the retirement of Terry Gambill, we all knew Allen ISD was going to try and land a “big fish” for their head coaching vacancy.

It appears they’ve landed one of the biggest fish of them all as former SMU and Arkansas head coach and Texas high school football legend Chad Morris is returning to the high school game to lead the largest high school program in the nation.

Morris, who spent last season as the offensive coordinator at Auburn, has an impressive resume at the high school level rolling up a 167-40 overall record in 16 seasons as a head coach at Eustace, Elysian Fields, Bay City, Stephenville and Lake Travis. Morris is best known for a two season stint at Lake Travis where he posted a 32-0 record and led the Cavaliers to state titles in 2008 and 2009. Morris also led Bay City to a state title in 2000. Morris has also been a state runner-up three times, twice at Elysian Fields in 1998 and 1999 and also at Bay City in 2001.

After leading Lake Travis to a state title in 2009, Morris departed for the college ranks where he quickly became a rising star as an offensive coordinator at Tulsa and later Clemson, before landing his first head coaching job at SMU in December 2014. Morris’ teams at SMU improved every year as after going 2-10 in 2015, the Mustangs were 5-7 in 2016 and 7-5 in 2017. Morris then in December of 2017 left SMU as he was named the head coach at Arkansas.

The stint at Arkansas was probably his first true failure as a head coach as things did not go well; Morris inherited a team with personnel that didn’t fit his scheme and nothing seemed to work for the Razorbacks. After going 2-10 and failing to won a conference game in 2018, Morris was dismissed before the end of his second season after a 2-8 start to the 2019 season. Morris is the only head coach in Arkansas history to have failed to win a conference game.

Morris was hired in December 2019 as the offensive coordinator and QB’s coach at Auburn, however his stint there lasted just over a year as head coach Gus Malzahn and his entire staff (including Morris) were fired on December 13, 2020. 

Morris’ hire at Allen makes a lot of sense from a personal standpoint as this puts Morris just an hour from Fort Worth where his son Chandler Morris, who is currently at Oklahoma, intends on transferring to TCU if Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley allows the transfer to take place.

The big question about the hire of Morris at Allen isn’t if he’s going to be successful. The question is how long does Morris remain in Allen. A successful run at one of the premier high school programs in the country will help Morris get his career back on an upward trajectory, so does he stay at Allen for the long haul or is a return to the college game inevitable with success leading the Eagles?