George RobinsonNashville Tennessean
It was another busy TSSAA football offseason in Middle Tennessee.
While some schools got a jump on coaching hires in November and immediately after the 2023 season ended in December, most made moves during the first few months of this year.
Here's a look at high school programs in the Nashville area who will have new coaches roaming the sidelines this fall.
Josh Adkins
Franklin
Adkins took over the Franklin program at the start of the year. Franklin suffered 21 straight losses under former coach Alex Melton, who went 1-26 in two seasons. Adkins is a former Gallatin assistant who served as the Green Wave's defensive and special teams coordinator the past five seasons. Gallatin went 7-4 last season, losing to Class 6A state runner-up Oakland in the first round of the state football playoffs.
Bobby Bentley
BGA
Bentley arrived in Nashville on Jan. 9, when the South Carolina high school football state championship coach accepted the position at BGA. Bentley replaced Jonas Rodriguez, who resigned after five seasons. Bentley won four straight South Carolina high school titles at James F. Byrnes (2002-05) and was a presence in the college football world for 10 years. He spent time as an analyst at Auburn, an assistant at South Carolina and South Florida, and in 2023 was an analyst at Central Florida under coach Gus Malzahn.
Michael Booker Jr.
West Creek
After having its most successful season since 2010, West Creek turned the page to Michael Booker Jr., who took over for Rob Gallowitz in June. Gallowitz went 8-13 in two seasons at West Creek and reached the playoffs for the first time in 13 years.
Booker coached high school football for six years in Texas. He played cornerback at Nebraska and was a first-round NFL draft pick who played two seasons with the Tennessee Titans (2000, 2001). He was a member of Tom Osborne's national championship teams at Nebraska in 1994 and 1995, and was the Atlanta Falcons' first-round pick (No. 11 overall) in 1997.
Arcentae Broome
Antioch
Broome traded one Metro Nashville job for another. The former Maplewood and Overton coach replaces Devin Arnold,who helped Antiochsnap a 22-game losing streak and reach the 6A playoffs for the first time since 2016. Antioch's 4-7 season last year was the program’s best since 2013.
Broome was 15-18 in three seasons at Overton and led the Bobcats to the first round of the 6A playoffs in 2021 and 2022. They finished 2-8 last fall.The 1993 Stratford graduate led Maplewood for 11 seasons, including a 4A state semifinal appearance in 2018.
Jared Carkuff
Cascade
A Cascade graduate (2012), Carkuff takes over a program that was under the helm of Jake Tyre for the past 10 seasons. Cascade was 5-6 last season, but won eight games in 2021, reaching the Class 2A playoffs. Carkuff was a star football and baseball player at Cascade who went on to play four years of baseball at Austin Peay.
Jamie Graham
Lipscomb Academy
The former Vanderbilt football standout and two-sport star at Whites Creek took the reins at Lipscomb Academy in early December. He spent fall 2023 as an assistant at UAB under Trent Dilfer. Graham also coached with Dilfer at Lipscomb Academy during Dilfer's four-year stay in Nashville that included consecutive DII-AA state titles in 2021 and 2022.
Graham inherits a program that is serving the second of a two-year DII-AAA postseason ban after the TSSAA ruled the school committed a recruiting violation during Kevin Mawae's lone season.
Kyle Gregory
Trousdale County
Gregory has extensive experience with high school football in Middle Tennessee. He was elevated to head coach at Trousdale in June after serving as the team's offensive coordinator last season. Gregory was also an assistant at Westmoreland in 2018and for Macon County in 2019 before returning to Trousdale in 2020.
Mark Hall
Northwest
Hall returns to head coaching after his first stint ended following the 2020 season at Sycamore. Hall takes over after Northwest did not renew Reynaldo Pena's contract. Pena went 4-26 in three seasons at Northwest, including 0-10 last fall. Hall, who was Northwest's assistant athletic director, was also the defensive coordinator for Pena the past three years.
Tim Hasselbeck
Ensworth
Hasselbeck jumps into high school coaching for the first time after spending the past four years as Ensworth's middle school coach. The former ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback takes over for Roc Batten, who led the Tigers for five years. Hasselbeck is the third former NFL player to coach in the Nashville area, the others being Dilfer and Mawae. Hasselbeck spent six seasons in the NFL, most notably with Washington in 2003-04 and the New York Giants in 2005-06.
Roger Haynes
Coffee County
Haynes served as defensive coordinator for the Raiders the past three seasons and was the interim coach for eight games last year after the resignation of Doug Greene. Haynes also spent nearly 20 years as a high school coach in Alabama.
Ron Lambert
Overton
After five years as an assistant at Davidson Academy, Lambert was ready to lead a program again. The Nashville area coach had stops at Rossview, Whites Creek and RePublic and takes over at Overton after Broome's departure. Lambert led Rossview for seven seasons (2010-2016) and had a 36-38 record, with three playoff appearances. He spent one season at Whites Creek (2017) and one at RePublic (2018), where he led the second-year program to a 5-6 record.
Derek Meador
Red Boiling Springs
Meador takes the place of Sean Link who guided Red Boiling Springs to the Class 1A playoffs the last three years. Link finished with a 12-28 record in four years at Red Boiling Springs, leaving to take the softball coaching position at Trousdale County. Meador will look to develop a program that has never advanced further than the first round and only four playoff appearances.
Wyatt Page
Montgomery Central
Page takes over a Central program that is coming off an 0-10 season. He starred as an offensive lineman and tight end at Creek Wood (2012-2015) and helped build Sycamore's offense as its coordinator last year. Sycamore recorded its second-most points per game in the school's 25-year history (24.6).
Justin Palmer
Forrest
Hired last December, Palmer is back in Middle Tennessee, where he led Shelbyville from 2016 to 2019. He won 33 games at Shelbyville and takes over a program that was helmed by Eli Stephenson, who was fired in November after going 7-14 the past two seasons.Palmer spent time as an assistant at West Creek and was Creek Wood's coach for the 2015 season.
Jay Pierce
DCA
The 2000 DCA graduate is coming off three seasons as coach of Blackman's middle school team. He also spent three seasons in Cross Plains, coaching East Robertson (2012-2014). He'll lead a Wildcats team that was coached by Paul Wade, who helped lead DCA to the 2021 DII-A state title.
CJ Scott
Glencliff
Twenty-five years after Scott helped lead Glencliff to the 5A state championship game as a player, he returns to lead a football program that has won only two games the past five seasons and finished 0-10 four times in that span. Phillip Stevenson resigned in November after Glencliff finished 2-8, snapping a 37-game losing streak. Scott, the 1999 Mr. Football winner in 5A, played college football at Tulsa.
Joseph Shepherd
Cane Ridge
Cane Ridge's transition from Eddie Woods to Shepherd should be smooth. He spent the past five seasons as associate head and QB coach. Woods resigned in April after nine seasons. Shepherd has 17 years of coaching experience and was the offensive coordinator at Humboldt.
Tyler Turner
Goodpasture
Turner will begin his second stint as Goodpasture's coach. He led Goodpasture to a 9-3 record in 2020 — his only season as its coach — that included a DII-AA state semifinal appearance. Goodpasture finished the 2023 season with a 3-8 record under Greg Cotten.
ANTIOCH FOOTBALL Why Purdue football commit Ta'khyian Whitset cherishes Antioch's turnaround
Paul Wade
Brentwood Academy
Wade will get a chance to put his stamp on a talented Brentwood Academy team that finished a disappointing 2-10 during Jacob Gill's only season. Wade has won four state titles, three with Davidson Academy and one with DCA. He went 45-26 in six seasons with the Wildcatsand joins an Eagles program that has 14 state titles in the program's history.
Deonte Weston
Northeast
Weston, a Kentucky native who played football at Hopkinsville High, will try to turn around a team that went 1-9 last season, its worst record since 2007. Weston is Northeast's third coach in the past four seasons. He served as a middle school coach at Trigg County in Kentucky and was a varsity assistant at Christian County. Last season, Weston coached at Todd County Central.
Reach sports writer George Robinson at georgerobinsontheleafchronicle.com and on the X platform (formerly Twitter) @Cville_Sports.
