New Brownwood Lions football head coach Jeryl Brixey revealed on Wednesday’s edition of the Brownwood Lions Coaches Show on KOXE the first member of his coaching staff.
Brownwood High School 2005 graduate Lee Grimes, who went on to star at Texas A&M and spent time in the NFL as well with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and then-San Diego Chargers, is returning to his alma mater as the offensive line coach and assistant head coach.
“A far as people I’m bringing with me, Lee Grimes is a familiar name for Brownwood people,” Brixey said. “He played here and is excited about coming home to Brownwood and he’s able to start Monday. His wife will be teaching here also next year.”
Grimes is a 2022 inductee into the Gordon Wood Hall of Champions and during his senior season at Brownwood, he won the state championship in the discus. Grimes was later named to the UIL All-Century Offensive Team for the period of 1910-2010.
Grimes’ coaching career includes stints as an assistant at Arkansas-Monticello, Southeastern Oklahoma State, Lubbock Estacado, East Texas Baptist, the University of Minnesota, Independence Community College, Texas A&M University, North Carolina-Charlotte, the University of Kansas, and IMG Academy in Florida.
Brixey added that he is closing in on his offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator hires, but those have not yet been finalized.
As for the rest of the staff, Brixey said, “I met with the current staff Tuesday and there’s some guys that are still deciding about how this is going to work out for them. I encouraged them that if they wanted to stay, they’ll be a place for them. We talked through my expectations so they would have open eyes about what it is and they can make their decisions. There’s some good football coaches on this staff, and if they want to stay we’d like them to stay.”
Hired on March 7, Brixey’s first official day on the job as Brownwood football head coach was Tuesday.
In regard to his top priorities now that he’s in Brownwood, Brixey said, “Coming in here, it’s not broken. The kids work hard, they’re in a program and doing things the right way. Normally if you come in early around January, you make a lot of changes in what you’re doing in offseason. Those are things we’ll look at in the long run, but being it’s mid to late March, especially by the time I get the coordinators here, we’re under the gun as far as getting the offense and defense and special teams installed. We’re going to maintain what they’re doing strength training wise and offseason wise and then as soon as we start getting coaches coached up about what we’re doing, then most of our focus in the athletic period and going into the summer skills session will be on getting the offense installed, the defense installed and how we do special teams.”
Brixey reiterated the Lions offense will resemble what you see from the Los Angeles Chargers in the NFL, and the defense will base out of an odd front with a three-high safety look that has been a fixture at 2024 6A Division II state champion Austin Vandergrift High School in recent years.