Football: Coaching Carousel Cranking Up

Wanted: A high school football coach who can turn a winless team into one that wins a state championship in dominating fashion.

That's an exaggeration, of course, but Springdale High sunk to 0-10 this year after going 14-0 during that memorable 2005 season. Springdale expects to be closer to 14-0 than 0-10 after reassigning Shane Patrick, who was 18-34 in five years as the Bulldogs coach.

Springdale has a rich tradition in football, but the job became much more difficult after the district split and added Springdale Har-Ber in 2006. Still, Springdale fans expect to be more like Har-Ber, which has mostly been successful after reaching the state championship game in only its second year as a varsity program.

The coaching carousel has been re-painted and cranked up on the college level after Charlie Weiss was fired at Kansas and Will Muschamp resigned under pressure at Florida. The carousel will reach full speed after replacements are named at Florida and Michigan, where Brady Hoke is likely finished at the nation's winningest college football program.

The coaching carousel at the high school level in Arkansas starts with Springdale, which became an elite program under former coach Jarrell Williams. The search for Patrick's replacement is under way, but I won't begin to speculate on a successor until the list of applicants has been greatly reduced.

Patrick was hired in late January 2010, and a new search could again last into the new year.

"When you're Springdale and a 7A school, there'll always be an interest," said Wayne Stehlik, Springdale athletic director. "Springdale is going through a cultural change, but we can still have great football at Springdale High."

There was plenty of movement in Arkansas last year at the high school level where 35 schools made coaching changes. There were some surprises, such as at Shiloh Christian where Josh Floyd resigned after 10 years as the Saints' head coach. Floyd moved to Alabama where he became head coach at Hewitt-Trussville, a Class 7A school near Birmingham. Floyd led the Huskies to a 5-6 record, and he faces a tough challenge while coaching in a league that includes Hoover, a nationally ranked program.

Brad Harris stunned many in Northwest Arkansas last year when he resigned as head coach at Lincoln to take a defensive coordinator's job at Benton. The move worked out very well for Brad and his son, Drew, who is one of the stars on a Benton team that is 11-0-1 on the season. Drew Harris, who has played both wide receiver and quarterback, will continue his career in college after earning a scholarship offer from Henderson State.

His father is the man behind a dominating defense at Benton, which held Pine Bluff to four first downs in Friday's 44-6 win. If there were a Broyles Award for top high school assistant in Arkansas, Harris would win it.

Springdale hopes to have success with its new hire like Fort Smith Northside did two years ago. Northside settled on one of its own when it hired Mike Falleur, a Grizzly graduate in 1980 who had been coaching for 21 years in Georgia.

Falleur went into the halls he used to walk as a student and got Northside athletes excited about football again. After a 3-7 finish in 2013, Falleur led Northside to a 7-4 record this season, including victories over Fayetteville, Pine Bluff and Greenwood.

Can Springdale fans expect a similar turnaround?

The answer is yes, and success on the football field will go a long way toward easing the perception the city is increasingly divided between the "Haves" on the west side and "Have-nots" on the east side.

RICK FIRES IS A SPORTS WRITER FOR NWA MEDIA.

Sports on 11/30/2014

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