El Campo athletic director/head football coach Chad Worrell  has been named the next head football coach at Burleson High School, Burleson ISD announced on Tuesday.

He replaces Jon Kitna, who resigned in early February to take a head coaching position at Lakota East High School just north of Cincinnati, OH.

“I’ve always thought Burleson would be a great place to live and coach and achieve some of the success they’ve had in the past," Worrell said. "They’ve done a great job with strength and conditioning under the previous staff so we won’t be starting from ground zero. We are from the DFW area so its good to be in the Fort Worth area closer to family."

Worrell has a career record of 157-48 with stops at Tom Bean, Hamlin, San Angelo Grape Creek, Brock and most recently El Campo. He’s most well known for his run at Brock where he started the Eagles 3A powerhouse program in 2013. After going 8-2 in an outlaw schedule, the Eagles won at least 12 games in seven straight seasons, winning a state title in 2015 and advancing to the state title game in 2017.

He has spent the past two seasons at Class 4A El Campo where he posted a 20-5 overall record leading the Ricebirds to a regional semifinal appearance in 2021. He’ll make the move back to the DFW area and will likely install his physical, ground-oriented style at Burleson, which has been a more wide open offensive attack under Kitna.

"Burleson ISD has been nothing but first class in the entire process from the administration to the facilities in place," Worrell said. "It’s a well-run district top to bottom. El Campo’s been nothing but great to us. It’s a great community and with great people and kids. It’s been a fun two years. I wish we could have won more than we did and I have nothing but great things to say about my time here and I think they are going to continue to have success."