Howe hires Sanger DC Bryan as head football coach, AD

New Howe head football coach and athletic director Lance Bryan, along with the his wife Erika and children, clockwise, Parker, Ty, and Callie, were at the Howe ISD school board meeting for his hiring.
New Howe head football coach and athletic director Lance Bryan, along with the his wife Erika and children, clockwise, Parker, Ty, and Callie, were at the Howe ISD school board meeting for his hiring.

HOWE — Lance Bryan knew exactly what he was getting into when he applied to be the head football coach at Howe since he spent the past two years scheming against the Bulldogs for non-district contests.

“One of the biggest things that I noticed right off the bat — we were the Homecoming two years ago — just the amount of community support I saw, there’s something to be said when a community supports their team,” he said. “And I know it’s some rough years but the community was still out in force and to me that spoke volumes. I thought there was pieces that were definitely there that could win some games.”

The glimpse at the program led to a deeper dive — from both sides— and Howe hired Bryan to be its head football coach and athletic director.

He replaces Bill Jehling, who resigned after a 6-34 record in four seasons.

“I’ve been working towards this my whole career,” he said. “I’ve just been waiting for my turn to run my whole program.”

The Gainesville native has spent the past three seasons as the defensive coordinator at Sanger, which reached the playoffs the last two years.

Howe superintendent Kevin Wilson said the district received 125 applicants and did two rounds of interviews leading up to Bryan’s hiring. His two-year contract received a unanimous 7-0 vote by the school board.

This will be the first head coaching position for Bryan, who takes over a team that enters the 2022 season having lost 22 straight games as well as a stretch of 16 consecutive district defeats.

The overall losing streak broke the previous long in program history, which was 12 from 2004-05, and also the longest winless streak, which included ties, was 19 from 1963-65.

“You can flip a program quickly, if you do it the right way,” Bryan said. “I know the formula for success is involved in the culture. Building a culture is the biggest thing to sustain success.”

During his time with the Indians, the program improved from 1-9 in the first year, which followed a winless 2018, and then went 8-2 before a 5-6 mark this past fall with bi-district losses in 2020 and 2021.

Before taking over the defense at Sanger, Bryan served as the DC in a couple of spots. He was at S&S for the 2018 season, spent two years leading that side of the ball at 6A Baytown Sterling and led that unit at Hutto from 2012-15, helping the Hippos to a 5A region final in 2014.

He was the special teams coordinator in Jasper for 2011 and began his time in the high school ranks as an assistant at Carthage in 2010 during a 3A Division II state championship season.

“I’ve taken stuff from everybody that I’ve worked for because I’ve had the privilege of working for a lot of accomplished guys and all of them have elements that I’ve tried to take and use and mold and then mix with my own stuff and create my own culture, path and program,” Bryan said.

Bryan, who played for Hardin-Simmons before serving as a graduate assistant for his alma mater from 2008-09, now also has an overall focus with the additional responsibility as an athletic director.

“There’s no sport where being stronger and faster don’t translate to better athletes, and that’s strength and conditioning, powerlifting and track. Those programs build athletes in every other sport, no matter what it is,” Bryan said. “One of the biggest things is I’m going to make sure I surround myself with people who share the vision. They have to coach in a positive way. Being all-in for Howe. They have to buy in to the vision we’re selling.”

Howe will drop from Class 3A Division I to Class 3A Division II for football in the upcoming realignment, which will be revealed during the first week of February. Howe turned in an enrollment of 349, which is one student below the current cutoff of 350 to separate Division II and Division I.

The Bulldogs are coming off their second consecutive 0-10 season that included six District 5-3A (I) losses each year. Before 2020, the only other winless campaign in school history was an 0-9-1 mark in 1964.

While Howe was winless again this past fall, the Bulldogs were more competitive than in 2020, when injuries ravaged the roster and they scored 10 or fewer points in seven of the nine games played on the field — a forfeit occurred for the season-finale due to COVID-19. The best opportunity for a victory came in a 31-29 loss to Bonham on a field goal in the final seconds. Every other game was decided by at least 23 points.

In 2021, Howe scored at least 20 points six times and lost twice by single digits — 27-20 against Weatherford Christian and 43-38 to Emory Rains — and by 10 once — 31-21 against Commerce.

Jehling had consecutive 3-7 seasons to open his tenure at Howe, which was an improvement over the 1-9 mark by the program in 2017 before his arrival, which was a step back from a region semifinal appearance in 2016.

This article originally appeared on Herald Democrat: Howe hires Sanger DC Bryan as head football coach and AD