News
We now have 837 teams &
195,282 games on AHSFHS.org.
Search Site
AHSFHS Article Series
The best of the best in Alabama High
School Football over the past 100 seasons.
2026 Class 4A Coaching Changes
2026 Head Football Coaching Changes |
 |
Anniston - Rico Jackson resigned in January to accept a position as the next head football coach at Minor. Jackson led Anniston to the 2025 state championship game in Birmingham before losing to Jackson in the title game. His three seasons in Anniston produced a record of 27-11 with a playoff appearance following each season. 2026 Season - Vacant Carroll - Matt Mellown leaves Carroll and Ozark after only two seasons with a 3-17 record. The Eagles last winning season was in 2017 when they finished 11-1 but since then things have not gone well for the program. 2026 Season - Jacob Kelley arrived in Ozark with a bang and rightfully so as his record at Cherokee County was one of winning and making deep playoff runs over the past eight seasons. Time will tell if he can turn around a program not known for winning consistently over the past few decades. This could prove to be the hire of the year for the Eagles of Carroll. Carver Birmingham - Rod Carson leaves Carver after two stints and a total of ten seasons leading the Rams football program. His last team may have been the best Carver squad finishing with a 6-3 record. Carver qualified for the playoffs the last two consecutive seasons for the first time since 2003. Coach Carson had the program headed in the right direction and will leave it to someone else to continue to build on that recent success. 2026 Season - Keon Handley will take over the football program at Carver as the 2026 season approaches. He has been around the Birmingham area and served as the head coach at Fairfield and Fultondale most recently. Center Point - DreMail King 2026 Season - Grady Griffin Cherokee County - Jacob Kelley resigned his head coaching position at Cherokee County in mid November. He leaves as the third winningest coach in school history with 65 victories under his belt. His teams reached the 4A state championship game three consecutive seasons but failed to bring a Blue Map back home to Centre. The Warriors have had great luck in retaining head football coaches since 1966 as they have had only six during that timeframe. Look for some of the bigger names to be on a long list of candidates for this job. 2026 Season - Bayley Blanchard will move to Cherokee County as the head football coach at the young age of 27. He played for Steve Smith at Piedmont winning a state championship in 2015. He went on to play at West Alabama earning all conference honors on the field. Blanchard came to Glencoe as an assistant coach in 2022 and served as the defensive coordinator in 2024 before taking over as the head coach for one season last year. Dale County - Evan Ballard 2026 Season - Vacant Demopolis - Ricky Woods leaves Demopolis after a single season that saw the Tigers finish 6-5. The six wins were the fewest for the Tigers since they finished with the same record back in 2011. Now Demopolis will be in search of a new leader for the fourth time in the last five seasons. The list of possible candidates should be long as the Tigers have always been winners on the football field. Thirty seasons in a row they have qualified for the playoffs and the program has amassed 698 victories on the gridiron the past 106 years. 2026 Season - Dustin Goodwin Greenville - Garrick Pimienta leaves Greenville after only three seasons with a 10-21 record. The Tigers were once a proud and consistent winning football program but have not been able to find a coach to lead them back to prominence on the field. Over the past 25 years the Tigers have cycled through a dozen head coaches with only a single one staying around for more than four seasons. A little stability would go a long way to rebuilding this program it seems. 2026 Season - Gary Johnston is a native of Gulf Shores and graduated from West Alabama in 2013. He served as the offensive coordinator at Foley the past four seasons before landing in Greenville as the next head football coach. Johnston also served as an assistant coach at Luverne, Citronelle and was the baseball coach at Elberta previously. Headland - Ethan Holland spent the 2025 season as the head coach at Headland where his only team finished with a 4-5 record. The Rams will be in search of of a new head coach for the eighth time in the past sixteen years. Holland moved on to Rehobeth as their head coach. 2026 Season - Ashley Trammell served as an assistant coach at Headland the past few seasons and will now get his first shot as the head football coach at the school. He was the head coach of the junior varsity squad and also served as the head baseball coach at Headland and previously at Abbeville. Holt - Brian Newton leaves Holt High School after only three seasons but his squad showed promise even with talk of disbanding the football program swirled around them. It was the best two year showing for the Ironmen since 2005. Now Holt will be on the clock in search of a coach willing to revive the program and keep it intact for the future. 2026 Season - Jordan Smith LeFlore - Michael Perry coached the LeFlore Rattlers the first nine games of the 2025 football season before interim head coach Markus Douglas stepped up to fill the void as interim head coach for the last game of the season. The Rattlers finished the 2025 season with a 3-7 record and will be headed in a different direction as next season approaches. The next hire will be the tenth different head coach to roam the sidelines at LeFlore this century. They last qualified for the playoffs in 2013 and last won a playoff game back in 2009. 2026 Season - Jonathan Mitchell is a 2006 graduate of LeFlore High School and has been the defensive coordinator at Williamson since 2019. He also coached at Norcross, Georgia and Amite County, Mississippi. Mitchell played football at Grambling State from 2007-2011. Marbury - Houston Powell leaves Marbury after three season as the head football coach. His record was a disappointing 5-26 with one playoff appearance. 2026 Season - Jason Wallace Moody - Jake Ganus resigned his position as head football coach at Moody shortly after leading the Blue Devils to their first ever state championship in December. In four short years he turned the dormant program into a championship program winning at least ten games all four seasons at the helm. The four consecutive ten win seasons came after the school had never even won ten games in any season since first fielding a varsity football team in 1978. 2026 Season - Kyle Tatum has been named the head coach of the Moody Blue Devils. They are the defending state champions and will be striving to get back to the same spot in 2026 under a different head coach after Jake Ganus bolted to Pell City. Following a standout high school career at Prattville, Tatum played offensive tackle at the University of Alabama in 2004. He served as an assistant coach at Texas State between 2012-2015 before moving to UAB in 2016. Most recently he was as assistant coach at Briarwood. Priceville - Seth Parker resigned as the head coach at Priceville in January to accept the same position at Bob Jones. Parker spent two seasons at Priceville and transformed the program from 2-8 in his first season to a second-round playoff appearance last season. 2026 Season - Austin Burke Sardis - B.J. Brooks resigned as the head coach at Sardis in January and was almost immediately named the next head coach at Glencoe. Brooks spent three seasons as the head coach and athletic director at Sardis. During his three seasons with the Lions, Brooks finished with a 10-20 record. 2026 Season - Wes Tidwell arrives at Sardis from Ragland where his teams reached the playoffs all five seasons with the Purple Devils, going 31-25 during his time there. He has been the head coach at Winston County between 2012 and 2015 with a record of 21-22. He was also the offensive coordinator at Alma Bryant and spent a season at Huntsville after leaving Winston County. Straughn - Garrett Windham leaves Straughn after two seasons with a record of 10-11 with one playoff appearance. He has accepted a job as an assistant coach at Foley. 2026 Season - Clint Humphrey served as the offensive coordinator for the Tigers last season and has been promoted to the head coaching job at Straughn. Humphrey has also been an assistant coach at St. Luke's, Murphy, Demopolis, Stanhope Elmore and Excel. | |
David Parker
AHSFHS.org
dparker@ahsfhs.org
Great Moments in Alabama High School Football History
Alabama School for the Deaf won Deaf School National Championships in 1971, 1987, 1991, 2000, 2001 and 2002.
Alabama School for the Deaf won Deaf School National Championships in 1971, 1987, 1991, 2000, 2001 and 2002.
