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After finishing 1-9 in first season in 2002, Argyle has grown into one of the state's premier 3A programs

Todd Rodgers could have had a job at Skyline when he left Flower Mound Marcus before the 2003 season. But he passed on the opportunity to be the offensive coordinator at a Class 5A school that hasn’t missed the playoffs since 1993.

Instead, Rodgers went to work at Argyle, a 2A school that was coming off a 1-9 finish in its first full varsity season.

“I felt like I was ready to be a head coach,” he said.

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It wasn’t the ideal setting to be a football coach. And not just because Rodgers felt Argyle “was better known as a basketball school” at the time.

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“It was really a tough situation,” he said. “We wore a lot of hats back then. We had to mark our fields, get the fields ready and water them. … Maintenance was assisting us, but they were overworked also, so we jumped in to help.

“We were in a gymnasium when I got the job. At spring break my first year as the head coach, we moved into a field house.”

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Fast-forward to 2013, and Argyle is now a booming community south of Denton on Interstate 35W. The football program and high school have benefited from the population explosion with major facility upgrades and a commitment to excel on and off the field.

Last school year, Argyle was the 3A winner of the UIL’s Lone Star Cup, which honors the state’s best overall athletic and academic programs and factors in marching band and one-act play. It was the fourth time in the last eight years that Argyle won its classification. Argyle is one of the favorites to win a state championship this season with a roster that includes four players committed to Football Bowl Subdivision programs, a rarity for a 3A school. Since Rodgers took over, Argyle is 100-30, has played in two state championship games and has made the playoffs each of the last nine seasons.

There are 17 starters returning from last season’s 11-2 team, including Texas Tech pledge Ian Sadler at wide receiver, Kansas State pledge Sam Sizelove at linebacker, Kansas State pledge Connor Wilson at safety and Arkansas pledge Cole Hedlund at kicker. Junior running back Nick Ralston, who ran for a 3A area-best 1,772 yards and scored 23 touchdowns, is also back.

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Argyle is No. 5 in The Associated Press’ 3A preseason state rankings after reaching a regional semifinal in 2012. Does this have the potential to be the best team Rodgers has had at Argyle?

“I believe so,” he said. “We’ve got good linemen, good skill positions, good leadership, highly motivated.”

Championship résumé

Rodgers knows what it takes to win a state championship. He was an assistant coach in charge of the secondary on the 1997 Marcus team that won the 5A Division II state championship.

After the 2002 season, Rodgers was hired by former Marcus head coach Que Brittain to join Brittain at Skyline and be the school’s offensive coordinator. But the chance to be a head coach for the first time lured him to Argyle before he ever coached at Skyline.

Success quickly followed. Argyle reached a regional final in Rodgers’ second season, then was the 2A Division I state runner-up in 2005. The Eagles reached another state championship game in 2011, losing to Wimberley in the 3A Division II final.

“About half of our team was on that [2011] state team,” said Sadler, who will see time at quarterback in addition to playing receiver. “That’s something that can help us throughout the season, knowing what it will take to get there.” How did Argyle get so good, so fast?

When Rodgers started at Argyle, there were fewer than 60 players in the football program and he had five assistants. Now, there are about 120 players and he has 12 assistants.

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A summer conditioning program was added the second year he was there. Participation in that has more than tripled since it started.

About $1.3 million was spent to upgrade Argyle’s football stadium in 2008, which included the addition of artificial turf. And last December, $100,000 worth of improvements were made to the weight room.

“Coach Rodgers has realized this year is going to be a really big year, and he wants to give us every chance to succeed,” said Wilson, a first-team all-state selection last season. “It shows a lot from him, as well as the school, giving us that [weight room] equipment. We’re all putting in the work, and it makes us feel like it’s appreciated.”

Plans for growth

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Argyle was designated as a high school by the Texas Education Agency for the 2000-01 school year, and it started with grades nine and 10 and had an enrollment of about 165. That enrollment is now up to about 675 for grades nine through 12, and Argyle ISD superintendent Telena Wright said, “It’s easy to see that the [school] district could double” within seven to 10 years.

But there are no plans to open a second high school anytime soon.“The next thing that would happen in terms of the high school would be building a bigger high school and converting the high school that we have, most likely, into a middle school. That’s what would happen first before there was ever another high school,” Wright said. “We purchased 108 acres for a high school. That’s intended to build a facility that would include a stadium and include football, softball, baseball fields.”

Rodgers said there is “no chance” that Argyle will move up to 4A in the UIL’s biennial realignment in February. So it looks like 3A teams around the state will have to contend with Argyle for quite some time.

 

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Argyle's quick rise

Argyle went 1-9 in its first full varsity season in 2002. How the team has fared since Todd Rodgers took over as the head coach in 2003: