New Faith Academy football coach ready for challenge
JENNIFER FIERRO • PICAYUNE STAFF
MARBLE FALLS — Randy Denton recognizes the challenge he accepted when he was named the head football coach at Faith Academy of Marble Falls on Feb. 5.
After all, he is taking over a program that won two games in 2014: one a forfeit and the other against a junior varsity team.
Since he served as an assistant coach last season, Denton has advantages headed into the spring practices.
He is familiar with the athletes and their strengths, and he has two men at Faith Academy — athletic director Jessie Crow and junior high football coach Russ Roberts — from whom he get advice.
Roberts was the Flames head football and track-and-field coach for five years.
“I respect (Roberts) greatly,” Denton said. “We have a good relationship. Between him and coach Crow, they’ll help put us in the right direction.”
And Denton’s track record of guiding the Flames basketball team into the playoffs in each of the past three years, including a District 4-3A championship of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools this season, illustrates his ability to get the most out of his athletes.
But that doesn’t mean coaching basketball and football is the same thing.
“It’s definitely added pressure,” he said. “Texas high school football is where it’s at.”
He remembers watching the Flames football squad go undefeated during the regular seasons in 2012 and 2013, the first two years Faith was an 11-man program.
Denton acknowledged some factors plagued the Flames in 2014 that they avoided the previous two years. These include:
- graduation depleting the roster depth that was created
- key players sitting out because of grades
- season-ending injuries to two key players in the first two weeks of the season, which forced underclassmen to take on bigger roles
- transfers to other programs at the end of the 2013-14 school year
By the end of the season, Faith was suiting up 15 players.
“I don’t know care who your coach is, that makes it difficult,” Denton said. “I don’t know if any other coach could have done more. Larger numbers – that alone will lead to more success.”
His offseason plan contains some of the same things the Flames have been doing for years such as competing in 7-on-7 football, which usually begins in May, holding spring practices and participating in a weight program.
Denton was unsure what kind of schemes Faith will run. In the first two years of 11-man football, the Flames ran a Wing-T offense, which is a run-based scheme using misdirection. Last season, they went with the spread offense, which is a heavy-pass scheme. He did know that he will be calling the offensive plays.
“With any sport, you tailor what you do with what you have, in my opinion,” he said. “We struggled with offensive line. Hopefully, we’ll get them coached up this summer. We were thinking we had some injuries, and we were young. We have everybody back.”
He acknowledged many athletes enjoy playing in passing schemes because it’s a lot of fun.
Quarterback Magnum Burcham will graduate in a few weeks, so the Flames will have a new starter. That’s the third different quarterback in three seasons. Junior Rich Coleman was the backup last season. Sophomore Braden McBride also is expected to be in the quarterback mix.
A 1989 graduate of Burnet High School, Denton was a three-year starter on the Bulldogs’ offensive line. He played baseball at Schreiner University in Kerrville.
For now, Denton remains on the basketball sideline. As the district champion for the first time in the history of the program, the Flames boys squad (18-4 overall, 12-0 district) received a bye headed into the regional tournament, which is Feb. 27-28 in San Antonio.
He also is the head baseball coach and has been holding practices for the past few weeks.
Crow said he plans to sit down with Denton later this spring to decide for which sports he will be an assistant starting in the 2015-16 school year.
jfierro@thepicayune.com