DeSoto (Texas) football coach Claude Mathis wasn’t particularly pleased with his team’s 46-27 win over Oklahoma and Perennial Oklahoma power Jenks on Saturday in the Southwest Showcase.
Claude Mathis paces the sideline
Saturday during his team's 46-27
win over Jenks.
Photo by Kyle Dantzler
The late-afternoon game was marred with turnovers, penalties and some special teams blunders. DeSoto won despite fumbling eight times.
“We’re by no means clicking on all cylinders right now,” Mathis told the
Dallas Morning News. “We overcame that adversity, so I’m OK with that.”
Despite all the miscues, Mathis held the Eagles together and won the game going away in an emotional showdown of cross-state rivals.
For it he was selected the Dallas Coach of the Week presented by Comerica Bank.
Dontre Wilson rushed 22 times for 132 yards and two scores and
Nick Orr
blocked two punts and added an interception and a touchdown in the victory at
Pennington Field
“The (players) were so hyped for Texas versus Oklahoma that they were just playing too fast,” Mathis said.
Mathis knows about playing fast. He was a football star and track sprinter at Bartlett High before setting career and season rushing records at Texas State University.
As a junior in high school, he rushed for 2,199 yards and 31 touchdowns. He led Bartlett to a pair of state championships as an All-State defensive back and running back.
His coaching career started in 1998 at Austin Anderson High, where he was offensive coordinator from 2000-04. He got his first head coaching job at Sommerville, but taking the same duties at Austin LBJ High School, where he went 21-16 in three season.
Claude Mathis accepted a job at
the University of Houston before
returning to DeSoto.
File photo by Bruce Crockett
In 2008, he took over at DeSoto and was voted District 11-5A Coach of the Year his first season. His team’s have steadily improved while going 41-14 in his four seasons plus.
He was coveted and actually accepted a job in January to become the running backs coach at the University of Houston. In Feb., he returned to coach the Eagles, stating the timing just wasn’t right for him to leave. The Eagles and DeSoto community were glad he changed his mind.
College coaches have flocked the DeSoto program since Mathis arrived. Roughly five to 10 Eagles from each recruiting class eventually make it to Division I programs. Mathis told Austin Statesmen columnist
Cedric Golden that his players work just as hard off the field as on it.
“I know my kids work their butts off in the classroom, then come out to the field and do the same thing,” Mathis told Golden. “When you have great kids and great coaches doing the right thing ... it just burns me up when guys say we're just all about talent. We put in the work here.”
