Copperas Cove ISD named former Huntsville Athletic Director and head football coach Rodney Southern to the same positions at Copperas Cove High on Thursday.

He replaces Tony Johnson who was moved into an athletic administration role on February 26.

Southern announced his retirement from Huntsville on February 18. At the time, he indicated he was looking at potentially taking a job at the college level, and he certainly did not rule out coaching again.

Sources indicated that after spending a few weeks exploring college opportunities in state and out of state, Southern and CCISD connected to discuss the opening at Copperas Cove. CCISD Superintendent Dr. Brent Hawkins had familiarity with Southern from his time spent as the superintendent at Livingston ISD, which is not far from Huntsville.

The new Copperas Cove head coach, who has a reputation of being a program builder, is quite familiar with Copperas Cove. He spent 1994-2001 on Jack Welch’s staff. He was the linebackers coach in 1994 and then from 1995-2001 he was the Bulldawgs defensive coordinator.

Prior to coming to Copperas Cove, Southern spent time as a graduate assistant at Louisiana Tech before coming to Texas.

After leaving Cove, Southern moved to his first head coaching job at Marshall High School in East Texas. There he led the Mavericks to back-to-back state championship appearances in 2004 and 2005. Southern moved back to Central Texas in 2007 where he took over at Belton High before moving to Huntsville in 2014.

The new Copperas Cove head coach holds a career record of 151-108.

Copperas Cove, who plays in 12-6A, posted a 4-6 record a year ago and hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2018 season.