Every Wednesday, we like to drop Roundtable discussions from the Arizona Varsity staff on some of the hottest and most debated topics in Arizona High School Sports. To join the discussion, jump into our Subscriber TeamAZV or Blue Chips forums! You can also track this year's new hires in our 2025 Coaching Carousel Thread.

Today's Topic?

The coach I'm most excited to see potentially thrive in a new environment is Ty Wisdom. He was at Horizon- very much a successful tenure there, and took the Huskies to the Open Division at one point. He goes to Desert Vista, has a successful season there, takes the Thunder to the Playoffs. Administration and him obviously butt heads a little bit, so that situation only lasted a year. He then goes to Nebraska, his home state, goes back to Millard South, his alma mater, coaches there for a couple years and wins a state title while producing a bunch of Division 1 players, and now he's back in the valley coaching at Chandler... which obviously everyone knows the story about Chandler.

It's not going to be an easy situation over there with the Wolves, because Basha, Perry, Hamilton and Casteel are all part of a situation in the CUSD where they are all trying to be East Valley powers. You can argue that Basha has already taken over the spot Chandler used to occupy, and that Hamilton is right back up there again too.

So... it's not going to be an easy situation.

As a side note, Scott Hare's return to coaching at Crismon is interesting, and obviously he had a lot of success at Mesquite so I'm really excited to see what he does in that situation.

You can follow Zach Alvira on Twitter/X at @ZachAlvira

A couple of the schools with new coaches that I’m interested in seeing out they do with the new hires are Chaparral and Dobson. One hired a first-time head coach and one hired one with experience in that role.

Trace Carroll, who played for both Ron Estabrook and Charlie Ragle at Chaparral is back to lead the Firebirds. For the last six years, Carroll has been the quarterbacks coach at Pinnacle, and the Pioneers have had quite a successful run at putting HS quarterbacks into college.

He has a young QB to work with in Cam Allen. Allen started his freshman year at Central and had 28 TD passes. He was limited to the second half of the season in his sophomore year at Chaparral after transferring. With two full years to work with Allen, along with a move down to the 5A, I’m excited to see if the ‘Birds can turn it around after going 8-22 over the past three years following back-to-back trips to the 6A title game in 2020 & 2021.

Last November, Bobby Newcombe stepped down from his head coaching position at Casteel. He took the Colts into the playoffs in all 7 of his seasons as the team made the move from 5A to 6A, and won 8 postseason games along the way. He will be the new head man at Dobson, a place with no expectations as the Mustangs went 5-25 over the last three years.

It’s been 18 years since DHS was in the playoffs and 31 years since the Mustangs won a playoff game. Newcombe has plenty of coaching experience- along with knowledge, leadership, and passion. Dobson is in the 5A Central Valley Region and will play a schedule in 2025 (and 2026) that includes just three opponents that made the playoffs in 2024. Could this team be the latest from the Mesa District to see a rise in its program?

You can follow Chris Eaton on Twitter/X at @GridironArizona

For me, the obvious answer here is first-year Chaparral head coach Trace Carroll. Bringing in someone who graduated from the school, and is familiar with the culture of what it means to be a Firebird, is exactly what Chaparral needs to get out of the rough patch they've been in for the last few years.

Like we saw at Pinnacle, Carroll built a rapid-fire offense and developed a high-IQ quarterback in Wyatt Horton. There's no doubt in my mind that Carroll will bring that same type of offense over to Chaparral. I'm excited to see how Carroll and his new offensive coordinator, former Chaparral and Arizona State wide receiver Kyle Williams, work together.

You can follow Adam Beadle on Twitter/X at @therealbeadle

I’m looking at Kalae Wong going over to Moon Valley from Trivium Prep and Ben Kullos going to O’Connor from Kellis this cycle.

Both coaches are great motivators, and have proven track records of building up talent and developing kids in their respective programs from their freshman season through graduation.

Moon Valley and O’Connor both have a great talent pool of kids, and the administrative support at both schools is fantastic. If given the time, we could see both programs stack up wins year one, as well as become contenders in their own conferences over the next few years.

You can follow Jacob Seliga on Twitter/X at @Jacob_Seliga

There are two programs in the East Valley that hired new coaches this offseason that I am definitely interested in following.

Jeremy Brigham was hired as the new Apache Junction football coach after Bruce Binkley resigned after the end of the 2024 season. Brigham comes to Apache Junction High after serving as the Head Coach of the Imagine Prep Superstition program in AJ, and competing in the CAA 8-man football league. He also coached at Apache Junction High School for a season in 2016 as an assistant.

The Prospectors have gone 1-9 the past two seasons after posting winning records from 2017-2022. The past two seasons combined with a sharply declining school enrollment brings AJ to 3A in 2025, with a tough region placement as well - paired with schools from the White Mountains (Blue Ridge, Show Low, Payson, Round Valley and ALA Mesa North).

To rebuild the program at Apache Junction is surely going to be a challenge. While the Apache Junction area is rapidly growing, like much of the East Valley - enrollment numbers have declined and participation numbers in the program have declined. I stopped by a spring football practice last week and saw less than two dozen players participating in drills. As an alumni of Apache Junction, I am very hopeful that the program can return to being competitive like it was under Max Ragsdale and Rich Milligan in the 2000's, and under the tenures of Vance Miller and Bruce Binkley up through 2022. It's a growing community and the program surely needs to find success quickly in order to keep students and specifically to this roundtable - prospective football players in the new neighborhoods, bring them to Apache Junction in the future.

Crismon High School's football program will be entering its third year of varsity action in 2025 with it's third Varsity Head Coach. Corbin Smith was the first head coach of the Crismon program, and stepped away in the spring of 2024. Assistant coach Derrick Sainz was named the interim coach for the 2024 season, and the Rattlers made some strides as a program, improving from an 0-10 season in 2023 to 5-5 in 2024 - just missing out on the 3A playoffs.

Surely Queen Creek Unified School District would like to achieve a similar success story with Crismon like the Eastmark program achieved, winning the 3A State Championship in its third year of varsity competition. Which leads to the return to Arizona for Scott Hare. In his last head coaching role, Hare led Mesquite to back-to-back 4A championship trophies in 2019 and 2020, and left Mesquite after a 4A semifinal appearance in 2021. Crismon expects to return a good majority of its starting groups that made big strides in both physical and mental maturity in their second year of varsity competition.

I'm looking forward to see what the Rattlers look like in the spring and summer months before truly making a prediction on how their 2025 season would unfold. Their region slate is amongst the toughest in 3A, being placed with ALA Ironwood, Benjamin Franklin, Gilbert Christian, Seton Catholic and Valley Christian. But there are good pieces in place in regards to the athletes they have in the program and the support of their community. Believe me when I say this, there is a LOT of football talent out here in the Queen Creek area codes.

You can follow J.J. Digos on Twitter/X at @GridironArizona

This is tough to whittle down to just 1-2 coaches. I'm a Chandler alum, and I've covered Casteel since it opened as part of the C-Town Rivals Podcast, so the Ty Wisdom and Joe Bushman additions are definitely intriguing. And I played for the brother of new Apache Junction head coach Jeremy Brigham, so I'd love to see the former NFL TE have success out there. Plus, the return of Mark and Marcus Carter to Arizona to try and revive Maryvale is something everyone has been talking about, so you have to have them in the mix.

I guess the thing I'm always most curious about is whether an offensive system will translate to a new school, and new division, so my first selection would be new Verrado Head Coach Brett Davis.

When Brett Davis moved to Arizona from Coachella Valley, his offense took Arizona by storm and became the #1 passing team in Arizona with a 2-QB system, and went to the 2A semifinals in 2024. Moving this Run and Shoot system to Verrado is going to be fascinating, and is going to force schools like Desert Edge to have a defensive answer. You can learn a lot about him and his offense in this awesome interview below:

I'm also very intrigued by the shifting around that happened in the Tempe Union District, with Mountain Pointe hiring former Vista Grande Head Coach Jon Roberts, and former Mountain Pointe Head Coach Eric Lauer moving over to Corona del Sol.

Corona spent the last couple of years with Jake Barro at the helm after he won a title at Casa Grande Union, and it's fascinating that Mountain Pointe also went and got a coach out of a rising Pinal County program.

Vista Grande was 5-42 in the five seasons before Jon Roberts took over, and went 26-14 in his tenure, including a trip to last year's 4A playoffs. Mountain Pointe was at its best when they ran the ball, and Vista Grande compiled 3,100+ rushing yards in just 11 games last season.

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