When Duncanville beat DeSoto, the win carried more than bragging rights. It was a battle between two national powers separated by just six miles — a rivalry born from youth leagues and grown men who’ve competed against each other their entire lives. For Head Coach Reginald Samples, the architect behind Duncanville’s dominance, it was about more than the final score. Reginald Samples Duncanville football is defined by precision, preparation, and a culture built on relentless competition.
“Our kids rose to the occasion,” Samples said. “We went into halftime up by one touchdown, then came out and scored three straight times. That’s a testament to the adjustments made at halftime and how our kids met the challenge.”
What makes Duncanville different, Samples explained, happens long before Friday night. It’s built on a practice culture obsessed with competition and precision — what he calls “situations.”
Practice Like You Play
“I’m a big believer that you play like you practice,” Samples said. “So I’m all over our practice routine.”
Samples doesn’t call plays anymore. He runs his program like a CEO, overseeing every phase to ensure that the practice reflects the competitive standard he expects. Each week, from Tuesday through Thursday, the Panthers conduct good-on-good sessions — offense versus defense, best against best — in live, controlled environments that replicate real game pressure.
They run two-minute drills with a minute and 29 seconds on the clock, one timeout, and the ball on the 30. They battle through goal-line stands, short-yardage plays, and first-down series with chains moving on the field. Every situation has a winner.
“It becomes a three-ring circus,” Samples said. “Coaches are screaming at each other. Players are fired up. That’s how it should be. We don’t wait until Friday night to make our kids understand how important red zone or short-yardage situations are.”
The energy, he added, is so contagious that when “situations” are missing from the schedule, players start asking when it’s coming. “They’re screaming at me,” he said. “And I love it because it means they’re motivated to compete.”
Controlled Chaos
Even with the intensity, Duncanville’s sessions stay clean. “We’ve trained our kids to go full speed without putting anybody on the ground,” Samples said. “It’s all pad on pad. We very seldom have anyone hurt in those sessions because we teach them to take care of their teammates.”
That balance — competing at maximum effort while protecting one another — defines the discipline behind Duncanville’s edge.
Leading Like an Administrator
Samples has evolved over his long career. Once an offensive coordinator, he eventually realized that running a 5,000-student powerhouse required him to step back from play-calling and focus on managing people and decisions.
“There were just so many things that needed to be handled from the top down,” he said. “I had to take myself out of play-calling and manage the program. That’s what made us more consistent.”
He learned to trust his staff and empower them to lead. “It was hard not to micromanage,” he admitted. “But we’ve won championships doing it this way. I didn’t win one as a coordinator — only as an administrator.”
A Coach’s Coach
Now, after decades of leading elite programs, Samples still sees himself as a student of the game.
“Everything I’ve learned, I stole from someone,” he said. “When I can put something out there to help another coach, I’m always happy to do it.”
That humility — paired with the competitive fire that fuels Duncanville’s rise — is what continues to make Reginald Samples one of the most respected coaches in America.
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Podcast transcript
Keith Grabowski (00:00)
We’re back for another episode of our National Coach of the Week show. And joining us today from Texas is the head coach at Duncanville High School, Reginald Samples. Coach Samples, great to have you here on the podcast.
Reginald Samples (00:12)
Thank you for having me. ⁓ Really looking forward to talking to you guys. I like to talk to coaches nationally rather than just in this little box in Texas.
Keith Grabowski (00:22)
That’s great, Coach, because that’s the kind of audience we have, we certainly feel ⁓ privileged to have you here. I’ve been following what you do for a ⁓ while now. You guys run an excellent program at Duncanville. ⁓ Ultra competitive schedule. The teams that you play, you knocked off a big one this past week in DeSoto. ⁓ And the season continues on here, and it just doesn’t get easier as you…
Roll through the second half of the season, get towards the playoffs and keep going. But I know before we get into it, I’m sure you want to recognize the collective effort of your coaches and your players here in this past week’s win.
Reginald Samples (01:02)
Well, of course, ⁓ you know, the disorder game is a big rivalry for us. For people who don’t know, the schools are only about, I’d probably say about six miles apart. The kids have competed against each other in Little League, junior high, all the way up. So they’re very familiar. And aside by that, both schools are always ranked in the top four or five in state and nationally ranked.
So it’s a big deal for us to win this game is normally the game for the district championship. And I just have to commend our staff and our players because ⁓ they really rose to the occasion. It was a back and forth game. We went in at halftime only leading by a touchdown. And we came out and scored three times in a row consecutively after the half. And I just think that’s
a testament to the adjustments that were made at halftime and just actually ⁓ just revving our kids up to meet the challenge because we knew that they were going to come out at the half and really put their best foot forward.
Keith Grabowski (02:15)
Coach, before we got going, you talked about the intensity that you’re able to build into what you do all week long to prepare for a game. And certainly that kind of intensity is something you need to bring into these big games. like I said, week in and week out playing ball in Texas, but something you call situations and the way the focus that you put on it all week long. We’d love to hear you talk about that and share that with our listeners.
Reginald Samples (02:38)
Well, one of the things we get a lot of of requests from coaches out of the state and some of the ones in the state just about coming in, trying to observe what we do or what we think really helps us in our competitive level. And ⁓ I’m a big believer in you you play like you practice.
So I’m, I’m all over our practice routine. The one thing I do as a head coach, I don’t coach either side of the ball. I’m more of an administrator. And my biggest deal is making sure that our practice routine represents the competitive level that we want to exhibit out on the field. So by doing that, ⁓
Normally our first day of the week is all scout where we were going over lining up against the other team, being able to pick up their blitzes, things that we picked up just from our scouting. But from Tuesday all the way to Thursday, we interject what we call situations and situations is basically highlighted by our first defense versus our first offense. We call it good on good, best on best. And there’s always a
Level or there’s always a number that we’re trying to get to that shows that one side of the ball wins. Normally ⁓ our situations involve our two minute session. We’ll give a, we’ll give the offense a minute and 29 seconds from the own 30, ⁓ one time out each. And we’ll let them go to see if they can score within a minute and have our defense to stop it. We’ll also do our goal line situation.
Well, we’ll put the ball on the five yard line, give the offense two plays from the five. And on something like that, we do two out of three. So if the offense gets stopped two out of three times, it’s done. If they get stopped the first two times, that’s it. If it’s one to one, they break the tie. And it really becomes a three ring circus because guys are screaming and we make a big deal out of who wins these sessions. Another session that we’ll have is.
We’ll just do first down situations. We’ll say it’s first and 10 and we’re running plays trying to move the sticks. We’ll have the sticks out there. have kids on the down markers and we’re moving the ball trying to get first down. It really helps our offense and defensive coordinators and staff defend situations that may come up. Third and short, third and long. So we work on that. But more than that,
We are on our kids about competing. When we get down to the goal line and it’s one yard, then you know, it’s going crazy on the field because the coaches are screaming at each other about they can’t run the ball in or they better pass. And then the offense is screaming about we’re going to punch it in. But those are the situations you get to in the game. We don’t want to wait until Friday night and then try to make our kids understand.
how important it is scoring in the red zone. We do it against each other and we really make place big emphasis on being successful in those areas. And a lot of coaches, they come out and they watch it and they are really amazed by ⁓ the excitement that’s generated when we put that in. Our kids normally don’t get to look at our practice schedule and we normally put it right about halfway at the beginning of our schedule.
Sometimes I’ll put it toward the end just to rile the kids up because if we go too long without situation, they’re screaming at me about, you know, what the hell’s going on? When are we getting into this session? And I love it because, you know, it just shows me that they’re motivated to compete.
Keith Grabowski (06:37)
Yeah, great stuff. Now with those, are those ⁓ full go full contact periods?
Reginald Samples (06:43)
We
thought up one of the things that I’ll tell you something else and I don’t know how long but we have trained our kids to third up at a maximum level without putting anybody on the ground. We don’t twist them. We don’t we don’t pile but that initial guy when we’re running a counter and they kick our block and he leading up that linebacker is going to smack him in the hole, but it’s all pad on pad. So we
Probably all year long, we very seldom get anybody hurt in these sessions because that’s something else we really preach is taking care of your teammate. But we don’t want it to be one of those situations where, and we have the, our young coaches referee, we don’t want it to be a doubt as to whether the guy got put on the ground or not. We want, we want a good high form tackle, but don’t twist anybody.
and don’t put anybody on the ground.
Keith Grabowski (07:45)
Yeah, that’s important stuff. you you mentioned now the role you’ve taken on as the head coach is being an administrator, being the guy who is staying on top of that energy, staying on top of guys being focused on the different things they have to do on either side of the ball. When did, in your head coaching career, did you move to doing that rather than, you know, calling one side of the ball or other as well?
Reginald Samples (08:10)
Well, I started out being an offensive coordinator and as I, you got to, I started out in what is probably the middle of the road or a little above our 4A schools. And you know, there wasn’t a lot of other things administrative that needed to be done. And as I moved, I went from a 4A to a 5A school. Now I’m in the, now we have almost 5,000 kids, 4,700 in our school.
⁓ There are so many other things like personnel, ⁓ just so many other things that come about that are more, and it’s hard to believe, but just as important or more important for me than call and play. So I realized that, and it wasn’t one of those things I decided I needed to do. I was forced to do it because I found myself
you know, getting caught up with play calling. And I found out that there was so many other things that were going on that was almost causing us to lose ball games that I had to take myself out of the play calling and manage the program. Just little things like whether we’re going to use a pooch field goal kicker or a field goal kicker who is more accurate ⁓ in kicking the ball deep. Whether we’re going to
⁓ used our we had a ⁓ big time running back sophomore that had offers as on office but we had one of our cornerbacks the the go down hurt and we had somebody had to make a decision as to whether whether we move this guy to play corner or leave him at running back well it was a big decision and it had to be made from the top down so i had so many of those
situation that called for me to be an administrator and not a coordinator and that’s really helped us in our program become more consistent because I wouldn’t want to leave that decision to one of my assistant coaches.
Keith Grabowski (10:18)
How difficult was that for you, especially when you first did it, to let go of those play calling duties? I know I’ve experienced it as a head coach and in trying to step away, I’ve had head coaches I’ve worked through stepped away to give me the reins of the offense. there’s, think ⁓ being able to guide versus micromanage, you don’t want to micromanage your OC.
Reginald Samples (10:39)
Yeah, you just took the word out of my mouth. I’m just sitting
here waiting to say that because after you’ve done it, it’s so hard not to micromanage because you always want to compare it to what you might have done or the play I might have called. But at the end of the day, you know, you got to put the importance in perspective. And at the end of the day, you’ve got to trust your assistants and let them work.
and have confidence in the work that they put in. I I can say it was hard, but we’ve won championships doing it this way. And I think that reinforces the decision that I’ve made because, know, before we, we’ve only won, I’ve only won state championship since I’ve been the administrator. I didn’t win one as a coordinator.
Keith Grabowski (11:32)
Yeah, you know, in our very first show we did last year for National Coach of the Week, had ⁓ Kyle Schmid on from Archbishop Spalding in Maryland in similar situation. And we talked about how for him, you know, I think as a head coach, when you’re still doing, you know, you’re stepping away from it, you still have that focus on your side of the ball. But then you realize, like, as you get into these other things, like, I can really make a big impact.
in all these other areas, whether it’s understanding overall the analytics of the game and what’s happening, what’s going on, maybe being able to understand a little bit more and get involved in special teams and just the overall flow of the game that you manage, which is much different than when you’re wearing that coordinator hat.
Reginald Samples (12:15)
You’re exactly right. that’s basically been the importance of it because I can now, I don’t have to be pressured with looking for one play. I can be more into the flow of the game and I can be more useful to my coordinators by letting them know the flow that I see. And I’ve done it so long that now it allows me to use when I was a coordinator to help them on some things that they need to know.
other than Playcaller.
Keith Grabowski (12:45)
Yeah, coach, I really appreciate you taking the time to give us that insight. And while we didn’t spend a ton of time here talking about ball, I think the insight you gave in just this short period, I think is very helpful to coaches out there. And congratulations again to you and your staff and your players on being honored as our national coach of the week. And we look forward to talking to you again, maybe in the off season. And good luck to you and the Panthers.
Reginald Samples (13:12)
Man, I appreciate it and anytime I can help me, I’m a coach’s guy. ⁓ Everything that I’ve learned, I stole from someone. So when I can just put some things out there to help some coaches, I’m always happy to do it.