Altus hires Dan Cocannouer as coach

Dan Fired mid season last week. Any thoughts or more insight to this? Seemed like a great guy with tons of history. They give him less than two full seasons during Covid? I mean ouch! Parents didn’t like his old school mentality or what?

Altus fan here, Dan’s time here is a lot, Lot, LOT worse than you guys think.

For starters, Dan was NOT well liked by the rest of the staff, the players, and the community. A lot of players left the team because of him. At least 30 players left, and those were just the players who returned after Dusty was named head coach. During a meeting with football parents, an air force plane flew overhead, surprising Dan, which is understandable for somebody who is not used to living in Altus. However, After one of the parents explained what it was, including an exclamation that it was the sound of freedom, Dan proceeded to say, and I quote, “**** the sound of freedom.” Not the wisest or nicest thing to say in a VERY pro-military air force town.

Now lets get to the part about coaching. Before Dan, our kids were only taught the flexbone, which probably indicates a greater program problem, but given that it won us a state championship, we weren’t changing it. And then here comes Dan, who decided to change the system to the spread. Needless to say, a lot of our kids did NOT know how to play in that scheme. Come football season, this resulted in never scoring more than two touchdowns while even the cupcakes in out district hand 40 on us. This did NOT improve coming into 2021, setting the stage for his mid-season firing. I don’t know if retirement ruined his coaching ability or he only took the job for a quick buck, but he did not put in the effort here at Altus.

Needless to say, once Dusty Davis was named head coach, along with the 30 players returning, we went back to the flexbone that was working well for us. Now that I am finished ranting, I hope y’all know the real story with us and Dan.