Three of Texas’ 10 Longest Active Football Coaches Have Ties to Concho Valley

SAN ANGELO, TX — Dave Campbell’s Texas Football has compiled a list of the 10 longest active head football coaches in the state — and three of them have ties to our area.

Former San Angelo Central coach Brent Davis comes in at No. 8 on the list with 31 years.

Davis spent 12 of those years at Central — more than any other school — where he took over a program on a 13-game losing streak and turned it into a state power.

The Bobcats were 95-46 under Davis and won six district titles and 10 playoff games during his stint from 2009 to 2020. 

They peaked as the No. 6-ranked team in the state in 2016 when they went 12-1 and lost to No. 1 Allen 34-21 in the third round of the playoffs.

Davis has also been a head coach at Banquete (1995-1997), Sinton (1998-2001), The Colony (2002-2004), Alice (2005-2008) and Gregory-Portland (2021-present).

He has an overall record of 237-122-1.

Albany’s Denney Faith is No. 2 on the list with 39 seasons — all at the same school about 35 miles northeast of Abilene. 

Albany isn’t technically in the Concho Valley, but the school is in our general area, and the Lions have spelled the end of the road for a lot of our teams over the years. 

Since 2003, Albany has won at least two playoff games in all but three years. The Lions have reached the state final six times and won it all in 2022 and 2023.

With four more years at Albany, Faith would tie Buda Hays’ Bob Shelton’s record of 43 years at the same school.

The No. 1 man on the list is Highland Park’s Randy Allen, whose head coaching career began at Ballinger way back in 1981. After five years there, he coached at Brownwood from 1986-1990, Abilene Cooper from 1991-1998, and he’s been at Highland Park ever since.

He’s the winningest active head coach in Texas with 472 wins, which remarkably is 93 ahead of Albany’s Faith.

With 16 more wins, he’ll tie the state’s all-time leader, Phil Danaher, who amassed most of those wins at Corpus Christi Calallen. Allen is already tied with Danaher for 93 playoff wins, the most in state history.

For the rest of the top 10 list, check out Texas Football’s story here.