This Week in Texas High School Football: Major moves in the Metroplex, Allen upgrades the schedule and some 7-on-7 news

Aledo makes a big change
Aledo ISD on Thursday announced a bombshell with the announcement of a restructuring of its athletic department. Head coach Steve Wood, who has posted an incredible 75-4 record with three state titles in just five years at the helm, will move into the role of Aledo ISD Athletic Director. Wood was promoted to the head coaching spot in 2014 after Tim Buchanan moved into the role of athletic director after a wildly successful 21-year run in Aledo winning 227 games and taking home five state titles. Buchanan, during his tenure as athletic director, never closed the door on returning to the sidelines one day, and honestly knowing Coach Buchanan, administration isn’t something he particularly enjoyed. He knows his place is on the sidelines and was thrilled to be offered the chance to do it at the same spot where he had so much success. Don’t expect much to change around the Aledo program, similar to how nothing really changed in 2014 when Wood took the reins of the program from Buchanan. Also of note, Monterrin “Money” Parks, a three-star WR recruit who is committed to the University of Utah transferred back to Aledo on Tuesday from Fort Worth All Saints. Parks, a First-Team TAPPS All-State WR, was a starting WR at Aledo as a sophomore and will add to an already explosive offense that features Oklahoma commit RB Jase McClellan and talented 2021 ATH JoJo Earle.

Claude Mathis is back in DeSoto
Four years after departing DeSoto to take a job on Chad Morris’ staff at SMU, Claude Mathis is back home in DeSoto, where he led the Eagles to an impressive 74-18 record and a pair of state semifinal runs in seven seasons from 2008-2014. Mathis, who had spent the last two years at Marshall, kept many ties to the DeSoto community during his absence from the sidelines. He’ll look to restore stability to a program that has been on a roller coaster ride for the past four years. A disasterous 6-6 season in 2015, an incredible 16-0 state title run in 2016 under Todd Peterman, then issues with the school board and Peterman that hovered over the program for a full year before Peterman’s resignation in January 2018. DeSoto’s, much-publicized coaching search in 2018 that ended in the hiring of Mike Robinson who lasted eight months before being reassigned to a role in the athletic department in December. This is a school and community that’s been through quite a bit recently. The Eagles have been solid the last two seasons with a combined 19-5 record, but in DeSoto the bar is much higher than that and Mathis will look to get the Eagles back among the elite programs in the state. The challenge is a different one now, as before it was DeSoto and Cedar Hill battling it out for bragging rights in the Southwest Dallas County corridor, with Duncanville being nothing more than an after-thought. The landscape has changed, Duncanville is now the power in the area with DeSoto and Cedar Hill scrambling to play catch up, while private school power Bishop Dunne is also siphoning talent away from the area. It’s an ultra-competitive landscape and Mathis will need to hire a quality staff and hit the ground running to keep up in one of the country’s most talent-rich areas.