Add Chad Morris to the list of notable TXHSFB coaches who left for college jobs, then returned to the high school level

Chad Morris, who won three state titles (two at Austin Lake Travis and one at Bay City) at Texas high schools, is returning to high school coaching at Allen after serving as the head coach at SMU and Arkansas and as the offensive coordinator at Clemson and Tulsa.

Here are other notable coaches who coached at Texas high schools, left for college jobs, then returned to the state to coach in high school again.

Art Briles

He was one of the one of the legends of Texas high school football after winning four state championships (1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999) and amassing a record of 135-29-2 at Stephenville. His 1998 team broke a 73-year-old national record by producing 8,664 yards of total offense in 1998, according to his bio when he was inducted into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame.

He had success as a college head coach, leading Houston to four bowl games and then coaching a Heisman Trophy winner (Robert Griffin III in 2011) and posting a record of 65-37 at Baylor. But everything changed in 2016, when he was fired amid a sexual assault scandal involving the football team, and he struggled to find a coaching job after that.

Mount Vernon made the controversial decision to hire him in May 2019, and he had a record of 20-6 in two seasons at the school and reached the 3A Division I state semifinals this past season before he resigned in December.

Todd Dodge

He is Texas high school football royalty. He coached Southlake Carroll to four state titles and a 79-1 record from 2002 to 2006.

His venture into college coaching did not go well, as he was 6-37 as the head coach at North Texas when he was fired in 2010.

But he returned to the high school game in May 2014, getting hired at Austin Westlake, and he picked up right where he left off at Carroll. He is 88-13 in seven seasons at Westlake, and he won back-to-back state titles the last two seasons after a state runner-up finish in 2015 and state semifinal appearances in 2017 and 2018.

Claude Mathis

He built DeSoto into a state power, compiling a record of 74-18 and reaching two state semifinals from 2008 to 2014.

He left to work as the running backs coach at SMU in 2015 and 2016 — when Chad Morris was the head coach there.

He returned as DeSoto’s head coach in 2019 after coaching at Marshall, and DeSoto reached the 6A Division I Region II final this past season before losing to nationally ranked Duncanville.

Todd Graham

Graham started his career as the defensive coordinator at Mesquite Poteet from 1988 to 1990, then left to join the college ranks as the defensive coordinator at East Central University in Oklahoma from 1991 to 1993. He returned to coach in high school at Carl Albert in Oklahoma (1994) and then at Allen (1995-2000).

At Allen, he took over a program that had not reached the playoffs in 10 years or won a district game in three seasons, and he made the playoffs in five of his six years at Allen, going 17-6 in his final two seasons. Most importantly, he took the first steps toward turning Allen into a perennial power, taking a roster that had 32 players when he arrived and leaving with 200 players in grades 10 through 12.

Graham left Allen to become the co-defensive coordinator at West Virginia, and has followed that with head coaching jobs at Rice, Tulsa, Pittsburgh, Arizona State and now Hawaii.

Dennis Parker

He won state titles as the offensive coordinator at Converse Judson in 1983 and as the head coach at Marshall in 1990 and was a two-time Texas High School Coach of the Year (1988 and 1990).

He coached at North Texas from 1991 to 1993, compiling a record of 11-21-1, then returned to Texas high school football as the head coach at Cleburne.

Tom Wilson

He took over as Texas A&M’s coach midway through the 1978 season and then coached the Aggies for three more seasons, finishing with a 21-19 record when he was fired and replaced by Jackie Sherrill, according to the Bryan College Station Eagle.

He took over as the head coach at Palestine in 1986 and struggled at the high school level initially, recording a record of 24-46-1 there, according to the Palestine Herald-Press. But he enjoyed huge success as the coach at Corsicana from 1993 until he retired in 1999, going 62-23 and reaching the 4A state semifinals in 1994 and finishing as the 4A Division I state runner-up in 1997. He died in 2016 after a battle with cancer.

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