Steers' standout offensive coordinator returns

• (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO | DAVID FLYNN) Casey Dacus has returned to Graham after spending six years as head football coach at Navasota High School. He has been named offensive coordinator and associate head coach for Graham’s football team and is excited to be back with the Steers.
• (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO | DAVID FLYNN) Casey Dacus (second from right) and other coaches on the Graham High School football staff watch players during a scrimmage in 2017. Dacus spent the last six years as head football coach at Navasota High School but has returned to Graham and assumed the role of offensive coordinator for the football team.

The man who helped lead Graham’s offense to four semifinals in seven years has returned to assume the offensive coordinator position once again.

Casey Dacus, former Graham offensive coordinator from 2011-2017, has returned to the team where he has been named offensive coordinator again, quarterbacks coach and associate head coach for the Steers football team.

Following Dacus’s successful time in Graham, an opportunity arose for him to take his first head coaching position at his alma mater, Navasota High School. He felt he couldn’t turn down the chance to be closer to home for him and his family, and he spent the last six seasons as head coach of the Rattlers.

Over the course of six years, Dacus compiled a 36-31 record and took the Rattlers to the playoffs four times. But following a 4-6 campaign in 2023, he felt it was time for him to step down and for someone else to take the reins of the program. The timing just so happened to work out that a chance to lead Graham’s offense again arose shortly after.

“We really weren’t looking to leave when we did. That job (at Navasota) just kind of presented itself, and it was one of those deals where we felt like we couldn’t say no,” Dacus said about the decision to leave Graham years ago. “...There were a lot of boxes that had been checked, but there’s a lot of boxes that Graham checks too, and it was hard to leave. So we’re really excited to come back.”

Coaching is in Dacus’s DNA as his father was a high school coach for about 40 years. Though he never encouraged Dacus to follow his footsteps, that naturally occurred.

The younger Dacus had a shot with the pros when he spent a year with the Houston Texans as a scouting assistant. But he soon realized that life wasn’t quite for him, so he got into coaching and has spent time at Stephenville, Early and Abilene Cooper before getting hired on at Graham the first time.

“I just knew that going down that road, while that would have been probably a neat experience, I knew that it’s not really conducive to family life,” Dacus said about the professional football opportunity. “I knew that probably wasn’t going to work out, and I always wanted to coach. My dad always coached, and so that’s kind of why I got out of that and went that other direction.”

While his father encouraged him to shoot for the higher ranks of coaching, like college or professional football, Dacus wanted to follow his biggest example and moved into the high school coaching territory.

“My dad was my hero. When I was growing up, I wanted to be just like him, and so, in a lot of ways it’s kind of worked out that way,” Dacus said.

Dacus’ work has taken him around Texas where he’s filled different capacities and seen the good and the bad of high school football. But he said it’s always worth it because of the youth that he gets to work with on a daily basis.

“It’s a tough lifestyle, but it’s a very rewarding one, as well…” Dacus said. “It’s a deal where you do it because you do it for kids and you want to help kids have a good experience, and want to help shape them for the future.”

His move back to Graham was a matter of fortuitous timing, but it was also aided by new Steers head coach Clay McChristian. The two worked together during Dacus’s time in Graham when he served as offensive coordinator and McChristian led as defensive coordinator.

McChristian has seen firsthand what Dacus is capable of with a talented offense, and he’s excited for what the team might be able to accomplish this year with an exceptional cast of players.

“We actually went to those semifinals with three different quarterbacks, and so it’s not like one kid. We went with three different quarterbacks and different systems,” McChristian said. “(Dacus is) really good at being adaptable to what type of kids that we have, what type of athletes.”

Dacus has seen the success of Graham’s offense the last few years, and he feels he can add a bit more to make it an even more dangerous threat for opposing defenses.

“I’m really going to kind of add tight ends and fullbacks and different personnel groupings, just to kind of make our offense more multiple, be able to run the ball at different sets, probably throw it out of different sets,” Dacus said.

Graham is coming off a year where the offense put up an astounding 44.2 points per game. The team brings back most of their starters on that side of the ball, so Dacus wants to keep that momentum going. He believes he can adjust to what already makes the Steers successful, while adding in his own flavor.

“A lot of guys have schemes. They try to fit kids in the schemes,” Dacus said. “That’s not the way that I do it. I kind of see what we have, and I kind of build schemes around players.”

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