This Week in Texas High School Football: May 24

7-on-7 state qualifying recap It was a busy weekend across Saturday with nine SQTs held statewide, six at the Division II level and three at the Division I level. We have scores from many of the tournaments linked below: http://www.texasfootball.com/week-3-statewide-sqt-scores/ If you need a list of the teams who have already punched their ticket to the 2018 Texas 7on7 State Championships, we’ve got you covered below: http://www.texasfootball.com/7on7-state-tournament-qualifiers-week-may-19/ It’s Memorial Day weekend so the schedule is a bit lighter next week but we still have a few SQTs going, at the Division I level, Hurst will host a massive 40 team SQT along with a SQT being played at Round Rock. Hurst will also host a Division II SQT along with Burnet in Central Texas and we’ll have our first ever Division III SQT as West Hardin hosts the first of what will be eight qualifiers for the smallest schools. Irving hires Coppell assistant coach On Wednesday morning, Irving ISD made it official bringing in Coppell assistant head coach Eric De Los Santos as its next head football coach. De Los Santos replaces Irving High alum Aaron De La Torre who left to take an assistant job at Denton Ryan. The Tigers don’t have the numbers or physical talent they had in the past, but it seemed like De La Torre got the most of his kids. It’ll be interesting to see if De Los Santos can build on that foundation and put Irving in the playoff discussion in a tough district. This was the first big hire for new IISD Executive Athletic Director Hal Wasson who took the new job in late March. Another Klein Collins coach moves up There’s been some turnover on the staff at Klein Collins this off-season, first head coach Drew Svoboda left to take a job on staff at Rice in late February, Klein ISD promoted defensive coordinator Adrian Mitchell take over for Svoboda in late April. Then Tuesday morning, Spring Branch ISD announced that Klein Collins offensive coordinator Todd Rankin was its choice to be the next head football coach at Stratford High School. Rankin replaces Eliot Allen who left to take over as HFC/AD at Brenham. Baytown Sterling moves quickly After the departure of head coach Brett Sawyer earlier this month, Baytown Sterling moved relatively quickly in naming its new head coach Brookshire Royal head coach Robert Toomer was named at a board meeting Monday night. Toomer spent 2017 at Royal and prior to that, he was defensive coordinator at Houston Heights for two seasons. Toomer also has prior head coaching experience at Aldine Nimitz and Abbeville, Louisiana. Brett Sawyer announced earlier this month he was taking the defensive coordinator position at Boerne High School. Austin Reagan’s Keith Carey steps down Austin Reagan head coach Keith Carey announced his resignation after six years at the helm. Although Carey’s 19-42 record doesn’t seem impressive on the surface, he did do an excellent job turning the program around. In the three seasons prior to Carey’s arrival RHS won a total of one game, Carey took Reagan to the playoffs three times in six seasons and also saw overall numbers in the program more than double. Livingston Brings Vanover out of retirement Livingston ISD turns to veteran head coach Finis Vanover to try and turn around their fortunes as LISD made the hire official at their board meeting last week. Vanover, who retired after the 2016 season at Tomball Memorial, has been a head coach at Hardin-Jefferson, Fort Worth Paschal, Seminole, Lufkin, Angleton and Diboll where spent 13 seasons from 1993-2005. Vanover’s most recent stop was Tomball Memorial where he spent 2011-2016 as he was the school’s first head coach. Vanover has 175 career wins and was also an assistant on a 1984 state championship team at Beaumont French. An odd situation in Tatum In one of the stranger stories of the off-season, Tatum has made a change at the head coaching position, but Craig Barker isn’t leaving the staff at Tatum. Instead, Barker is taking what appears to be a demotion to the offensive coordinator position and defensive coordinator Darren Hylander has been promoted to interim head coach but it’s unclear for how long. Tatum is dropping down to Class 3A Division I from 4A Division II and had high hopes for the 2018 season, so it’ll be interesting to see how this staff shakeup impacts the Eagles. No home games for Jacksonville in 2018 Due to construction at the historic Tomato Bowl, Jacksonville won’t have a home game for the 2018 season. Instead the Indians will play three home games in Tyler at TMF-Rose Stadium and their final home game will be played in Bullard. The historic stadium is one of our favorites at DCTF, but it was long overdue for a facelift, the stadium will be brand new on the inside, with new bleachers, turf field, brand new restrooms added, while the beautiful façade of the stadium in downtown Jacksonville will remain. If you want to see what the new stadium will look like, check out the link below for some artist renderings. The stadium is set to re-open in April of 2019 which will be just in time for graduation. https://www.jisd.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=640771&type=d&pREC_ID=1112392 Spring football is here! Spring football is right around the corner for 6A and 5A programs statewide, we will have a statewide listing of spring football games right here each week until the end of May.  If you’d like your spring game to be listed; send an e-mail to matt.stepp@texasfootball.com.  Here’s a listing of the spring games we currently have! May 23 Arlington Sam Houston, 5:00pm at Wilemon Field Arlington Seguin, 6:30pm at Seguin HS Belton, 5:00pm at Tiger Field Colleyville Heritage, 6:00pm at Heritage HS El Paso Pebble Hills, 7:00pm at Pebble Hills HS Saginaw Boswell, 6:00pm at Pioneer Stadium May 24 Alice, 7:00pm at Memorial Stadium Arlington, 6:00pm at Arlington HS Arlington Bowie, 6:30pm at Bowie HS Arlington Martin, 7:00pm at Martin HS Cedar Park, 7:15pm at Cedar Park HS Cibolo Steele, 6:00pm at Steele HS College Station, 6:00pm at CSHS Cougar Stadium El Paso Eastlake, 6:30pm at Eastlake HS El Paso Franklin, 7:00pm at Franklin HS Frisco Lone Star, 6:00pm at Lone Star HS Frisco Memorial, 6:00pm at Memorial HS Haslet Eaton, 6:00pm at Eaton HS Killeen, 7:00pm at Killeen HS Lancaster, 6:30pm at Tiger Stadium Mesquite Horn, 6:30pm at Horn HS Mesquite Poteet, 6:00pm at Memorial Stadium McKinney Boyd, 7:00pm at Boyd HS McKinney North, 6:30pm at McKinney North HS Midlothian, 6:30pm at MISD Stadium North Forney, 6:00pm at City Bank Stadium San Antonio East Central, 6:00pm at Hornet Stadium San Antonio O’Connor, 6:00pm at O’Connor HS Southlake Carroll, 7:00pm at Dragon Stadium Tyler John Tyler, 6:00pm at John Tyler HS Waco, 5:30pm at Waco ISD Stadium Waller, 5:30pm at Waller ISD Stadium May 25 Dallas South Oak Cliff, 7:00pm at Life Oak Cliff HS Dallas Skyline, 5:30pm at Forrester Field El Paso Americas, 7:00pm at Americas HS El Paso Del Valle, 5:30pm at Conquest Stadium El Paso Parkland, 6:00pm at Parkland HS Fort Worth South Hills, 5:30pm at South Hills HS Fort Worth Southwest, 6:00pm at Southwest HS Hallsville, 6:30pm at Bobcat Stadium McAllen Memorial, 6:00pm at Memorial HS Trophy Club Nelson, 6:00pm at Byron Nelson HS May 29 Sachse, 6:00pm at Sachse HS June 1 San Antonio McCollum, 6pm at Memorial Stadium   Coaching Clinics With the off-season starting that means it’s also clinic season throughout the state of Texas,  here’s a listing of clinics from around the state, if we don’t have you clinic listed e-mail it to us at matt.stepp@texasfootball.com May 25-26: Gateway to Mexico Clinic, Laredo June 12-14: Angelo Coaches Clinic, San Angelo http://www.angelofootballclinic.com/index.html June 14-15: Dos Amigos Ranch Football Clinic, Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino-Hotel, Eagle Pass July 22-25: 2018 THSCA Convention & Coaching School, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, San Antonio http://www.thsca.com/convention