GSHS hires former D-1 head football coach Mark Hudspeth

GSHS hires former D-1 head football coach Mark Hudspeth

By Fran Thompson
Recently hired Gulf Shores High School football coach Mark Hudspeth has had immediate success as both a high school and college coach as well as an outstanding playing career at Delta State in Cleveland, Mississippi, where he was the team’s starting safety as a junior before moving to starting quarterback in his final season. Those credentials stood out among the more than 100 resumes submitted to replace Matt Blake earlier this month.
In the fall of 2020, Hudspeth coached a Gulf Shores youth team that included his own son and said he had the time of his life. So walking away from a future big dollar college offer should not be an issue.
After graduating from Delta State, Hudspeth returned to Winston Academy and took a program that had four wins in the previous two seasons to a 25–1 record and the 1997 Mississippi Private School Association Class A state title.
He started his college coaching career at Central Arkansas as a graduate assistant and also worked at Nicholls State before returning to his alma mater to help Delta State win the 2000 Division II championship. With Hudspeth as offensive coordinator, the Delta State offense set title-game records in rushing yards (524), total yards (649) and first downs (36) en route to a 63–34 win.
In 2001, Hudspeth was the offensive coordinator at the United States Naval Academy.
In 2002, he was hired for his first head coaching job at North Alabama and had an incredible run there, going 66-21 in six years.
He was the passing game coordinator at Mississippi State for two years before taking over the program at Louisiana–Lafayette.
In his first season in Lafayette, he led a Rajun Cajuns’ team that finished 3–9 the year before to a 9–4 record and its first bowl berth since 1970. He added three more 9–4 seasons and three more bowl games in Lafayette.
Those 36 wins rank as the most successful four-year run in program history. But the school vacated 22 of those, including victories in the 2011 and 2013 New Orleans Bowl, after the NCAA Committee on Infractions determined that a former assistant coach, acting alone, was involved in conduct that led to falsifying ACT scores of five prospective student-athletes.
In 2018, Hudspeth returned to Mississippi State as assistant head coach. That 8-5 Bulldog season included wins against Auburn and Texas A&M and a trip to the New Year’s Day Outback Bowl. He was a candidate for the Mississippi State head coaching job that later went to Mike Leach.
In 2019, his lone year at Austin Peay, Hudspeth led the team to a record 11 wins and a share of the Ohio Valley Conference title, its first conference title in 42 years. The team won play-off games against Furman and Sacramento State during its first ever appearance in the NCAA Division I Football Championships.
Hudspeth was in the midst of serving a 20-day suspension for violations of his employment agreement when he resigned at Austin Peay. Two of his Austin Peay assistant coaches left the program six days prior to Hudspeth’s suspension and a third six days after he resigned, according to ClarksvilleNow.com.
“This was not an easy decision, but a very personal one. I need to take some time away from the game with Tyla and the kids,’’ Hudspeth said when he stepped down.
“We’ve been coming to Gulf Shores for a long time and had a home here,’’ Hudspeth said at his introductory press conference. “In college, every long weekend we got, we thought, ‘Can we make it down to our summer home?’ In the summer, we would come down and stay for a month. So, we were like, ‘We are here. Why do we want to leave?’
“This position came open and it was like God’s timing that gave us this opportunity. I get a chance now to coach my boys one day, and that is really what I’m excited about. I’ll have a lot more opportunity to get my family involved here,” he added.
Gulf Shores competes as a 6A program in a region that includes powerhouses Spanish Fort, Blount, Saraland and McGill-Toolen. The Dolphins finished 2-8 last season and have gone 9-60 over the last six years. The team last made the play-offs in 2013, with current Spanish Fort coach Ben Blackmon at the helm of that 8-3 team.
Blackmon had replaced Duane Davis, who was fired by then first-year principal Ernie Rosado less than two weeks after the Dolphins made their first playoff appearance in school history. The Dolphins finished that 2008 season with a 7-4 record.
Davis took over the program from Robby Guthrie, who went 1-28 during the school’s first three years as a varsity program.
“It’s going to be a culture change. We have to become a tough football team,’’ Hudspeth said at his introductory press conference. “We have to use every resource we have to be the most disciplined team. We have to make sure that we don’t beat ourselves. By being a disciplined football team, you can make up some ground. By being a tough football team, you can make up some ground. We are going to bring in a staff that I think will be super creative, that is highly experienced, that will give us an edge schematically on Friday nights. I think with all that we can close the gap in every area.”
Hudspeth’s on field credentials are incredible. He was voted conference coach of the year three times and earned the American Football Coaches Association regional coach of the year honors in 2003, 2005 and 2019, according to a Gulf Shores City Schools press release.
“Tyla, my boys, and I are excited to be joining the Gulf Shores Dolphin family! I am looking forward to leading a team that is a part of a community that we care so much about,’’ Hudspeth said. “Our goal is to develop a program that everyone can be proud of and that develops young men on and off the field.”
Former South Alabama and Troy offensive coordinator Kenny Edenfield has been approved by the city’s school board for that job here.
Edenfield was the offensive coordinator for six of Hudspeth’s seven seasons at North Alabama and was later the offensive coordinator for three of Neal Brown’s four years as the Troy head coach (His quarterback was GSHS alum Brandon Silvers).
Parents are already settling in Gulf Shores because of school innovations such as its emerging Engineering Academy. The expectation is that the quality of the football coaching now available will be an attraction on par with the academic lessons taught in the classroom.