North Crowley stayed in-house to fill one of the premier coaching jobs in Texas high school football.
DeMarcus Harris was promoted to North Crowley’s head coach at a Crowley ISD school board meeting Thursday night and will take over a program that has won two state titles and become one of the elite programs in the state.
Harris was the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for North Crowley’s regional finalist team that finished 12-2 this season and ranked 10th among area Class 6A teams in scoring defense, allowing 19.1 points per game. He was the defensive coordinator for the 2024 North Crowley team that went 16-0 and won the Class 6A Division I state title, allowing an average of 17.7 points.
“My job is to keep it going and make it better. I don’t want to just stay the same,” Harris said to the school board after being approved by a unanimous vote. “You guys are going to get everything from me every single day. I lost my mom a couple of years ago, and I know she is watching, smiling down from heaven, watching her son take this job. What a job.”
High School Sports
Harris will replace Ray Gates, who left North Crowley last month to accept a job as the defensive line coach at North Texas. Gates had a record of 54-4 in four seasons at North Crowley.
“Our goal is to play in the third round of the playoffs and beyond, and to play for state championships,” Harris said. “Crowley ISD deserves it. I just want to say, the dynasty continues.”
North Crowley now has the No. 1 recruit in the nation in the Class of 2027, as five-star cornerback John Meredith III announced on X on Wednesday night that he has transferred there from Euless Trinity. The junior, who lists 40 college offers, was chosen for this year’s Under Armour All-American Game and was a first-team all-district selection for an 8-3 Trinity team.
North Crowley will have plenty of talent returning on offense. Junior running backs Kiante Ingram and G’Yrell Smith both went over 1,000 yards and combined for 2,627 yards and 43 touchdowns this season, four-star sophomore wide receiver Damarion Mays had 54 catches for 843 yards and 11 touchdowns and junior quarterback Hayes Cloutier threw for 2,058 yards and 21 touchdowns.
Mesquite was Harris’ first head coaching job, and he was 13-19 in three seasons there from 2021 to 2023. After a 2-8 season in 2023, he resigned at Mesquite to become a special assistant to Gates at North Crowley.
Harris has also served as the program’s College, Career and Military Readiness director, where he has helped build systems that prepare student-athletes for life after graduation.
“I wanted to be here,” Harris said. “I moved my family here. My wife works here. We’re all in. We’re North Crowley. I was all in the day I got here.”
Harris was the defensive coordinator and assistant head coach at Cedar Hill before that and helped the school to a state runner-up finish in Class 6A Division II in 2020. He began his teaching and coaching career in 2007 at Hillcrest, where he was a special teams coordinator, strength and conditioning coach and track coach for four years.
He then worked as the defensive coordinator at Little Elm and the co-defensive coordinator at Arlington Seguin before going to Cedar Hill in 2017.
North Crowley has enjoyed a remarkable turnaround that started under Courtney Allen and then went to another level with Gates. North Crowley had 14 consecutive losing seasons from 2006 to 2019, going 36-105 in that span, before posting a record of 67-12 over the last six years and winning its first state title since 2003.
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