This Week in TXHSFB: Sealy makes a big hire, 7-on-7 on the horizon

[caption id="attachment_28369" align="alignright" width="350"] Shane Mobley (Courtesy Sweetwater ISD)[/caption] The coaching carousel is rapidly picking up the pace with dominoes falling all over the state. Here are just a few of the biggest stories to drop over the last week. As we hinted in last week’s column, Sealy indeed did pick a candidate from West Texas as Sweetwater HC Shane Mobley was named HFC/AD at Sealy ISD Wednesday afternoon. Mobley inherits a program looking to restore some past glory and with some loaded younger groups in the pipeline, he could be in for some real success in the Houston area. “I’ve had two separate stints in Sweetwater, the memories here will last a lifetime, my son is graduating from here and for our kids and staff to do what we did was simply amazing. I’m forever grateful to my players and to the town, they gave me a shot to be a head coach, I’m just so proud of our kids and staff,” said Mobley. As for the move to Sealy, it has a lot of positives according to Mobley, “Sealy was a job that intrigued me, I did a lot of research on the job and a lot of the challenges we had in Sweetwater are similar to the challenges ahead that we have in Sealy. My wife and I were blown away today by the welcome we got in Sealy, I am rejuvenated by the challenge ahead and am really excited.” Aldine promoted DL Coach Hank Semler to their vacant HFC position. Semler has prior head coaching experience at North Forney where he was 2-9 in 2010. He was also an assistant a few years back at powerful programs Southlake Carroll and Euless Trinity. Southwest ISD in San Antonio will open their second high school (Legacy High) next year. The newest program in the Alamo City will begin varsity football in 2018, likely as a 5A program, and they tabbed SISD middle school coordinator John Tarvin as their new coach. Tarvin, who was the DC at Southwest until 2015, moved to a middle school coordinator job last year in early preparation for this new role. San Antonio Reagan hired DC Lyndon Hamilton to replace David Wetzel, who joined Matt Rhule's staff at Baylor. North East ISD has a long tradition of staying inside with hires and Hamilton will continue that trend. Sanger promoted OC Cole Ford to HFC. Chuck Galbreath moves to AD only. “I have mixed emotions for sure, but I feel like this is a great opportunity for me and my family and for Cole, as well. He’s done a great job as OC and I know he’ll do a great job as Head Football Coach,” said Galbreath. The Woodlands College Park HFC job opened on Wednesday, as well, when Richard Carson, the only coach the school has ever known, announced his retirement. Cedar Hill interviews will start next week. Reports are six candidates will be brought in for panel interviews after the MLK Holiday. The finalists will then go through a final interview, presumably with a smaller group of CHISD leaders. The smart money says that Cedar Hill will hire someone who has ties to the McGuire era either past or present. However, with this being such a high profile opening, there is always potential for a sleeper candidate to emerge. Stafford HC Ron Counter resigned after a very successful stint at Stafford, and we expect his name to surface again in the next week at a new gig in the Houston area. As expected, Littlefield HC Bryan Huseman announced his retirement on Wednesday, and he departs LHS as the school’s all-time leader in wins. North Forney and head coach Lance Gary parted ways on Wednesday after five years. Gary brought stability to a program that saw three different head coaches in their first three years but he was unable to take the Falcons to the playoffs. Port Isabel and Monty Stumbaugh parted ways after 16 very successful seasons. Stumbaugh did not have his contract renewed last offseason and it was rumored then that he may be out, but he led the Tarpons to a 9-2 record in 2016. The district posted the opening in local newspapers despite Stumbaugh’s contract not ending until June. PIHS has had more playoff success than most other Valley schools, there’s plenty of tradition, and with living near South Padre Island, it’s certainly going to be attractive to many applicants. Cotulla will likely be on their third head coach in three years in 2017. Corey Spivey resigned shortly before the start of the 2016 season, and Kelly Shull, a longtime South Texas coaching veteran, was coaxed out of retirement to pilot the ship on what was apparently an interim basis for 2016. It’s unclear at this time if Shull is a candidate to take the gig on full-time or if he’ll go back into retirement. Brownsville Porter interviews will begin mid-January with a hire expected at the end of the month. Brownsville Rivera HC Tom Chavez is also filling in as interim AD at Brownsville ISD. College Station A&M Consolidated will start interviews on January 18 with an anticipated hire at the January board meeting. If former Navasota HC Lee Fedora is interested in returning to his alma mater, he’d be a tough candidate to turn down. Fedora lives in the area still and took a year off from coaching after his departure from Navasota. Corpus Christi Carroll interviews will start this week, and the school would like to have a hire in place by the end of the month to replace Jerry Long. Tomball and Tomball Memorial interviews are going on this week, both jobs should have a new coach in place either at the end of January or first week of February. LaVernia had 120 applicants for their vacant head football coach position. The pool has been narrowed to eleven candidates and interviews will likely kick off next week. The district would like a hire in place by the middle of February at the latest, and considering they’ll be on their fourth coach in four years, the ISD needs to be find a candidate who will stick around in Bear Country for a few years and establish some stability. The opening for the vacancy at Killeen Shoemaker closes on January 16. Interviews will begin shortly thereafter and a hire will be in place mid-February. Wolfforth Frenship interviewed the three finalists for their vacant HFC position yesterday (Tuesday). Katy Paetow interviews this week as Katy ISD’s newest program looks to hire their first-ever head football coach, and Katy Morton Ranch interviews were conducted before Christmas and a name will be presented to the school board at the January 17 meeting. The big news outside of the coaching ranks was Denton Guyer star RB Noah Cain announcing via twitter his transfer to IMG Academy in Florida. Cain, considered by many recruiting services to be the top running back in the Class of 2019, had been a key cog in a potent ground game for Guyer and his loss certainly hurts the Wildcats. It’s the second high profile transfer from Denton Guyer recently, as DeSoto QB Shawn Robinson departed last spring when his mother was hired to be the head girl’s basketball coach at DeSoto. Robinson subsequently led the Eagles to a 16-0 record and their first state title in 2016. In other news, the State 7-on-7 Board of Directors will meet January 16 and 17 to finalize details for this summer’s competition.  Expect the 2017 State Tournament to return to College Station, but a likely earlier date is in the cards. The most likely guess is the final weekend of June. This would give an extra week between the State Tournament and the annual THSCA coaches convention and take the event out of conflict with the July 4 holiday. This means the qualifying campaign will be condensed down by a week or so. I anticipate at the Division I level (5A/6A), fewer State Qualifying Tournaments (SQTs) statewide and more regional style qualifiers. So for example, instead of 32 SQTs that have 16 teams each participating with two qualifiers advancing, we may just have 16 SQTs state wide, with 32 teams participating in each SQT and four qualifiers to the State Tournament. Expect the full SQT list to be posted on the Texas 7-on-7 website in early February.