New Memorial Football Coach Comes Home

After three years away, the top dog has come home.

Logan Thomas, a 2009 Edmond Memorial graduate, is back on campus as the new Bulldog football coach.

Thomas is returning to Edmond after spending the past two years as Piedmont defensive coordinator. He said it is special to take over his old program, and he is excited to work toward turning the program around.

“I think there’s so much history and tradition with it being the original high school,” Thomas said. “It’s the only one with a gold ball. To me, there’s a standard that we need to try to get back to being here.”

The past few years have been hard for Bulldog football. Memorial is 5-35 the past four seasons, including 1-6 against its Edlam rivals. Memorial last beat Edmond North in 2018 and Edmond Santa Fe in 2014.

Thomas said he and some of the assistants he has hired have had recent success, and he believes that will help turn things around.

“I think raising our expectation of them that anytime we step foot on the field, whether it’s practice, scrimmage, game, that we’re going to compete and be our best,” Thomas said. “I think the mentality that we’ve got to get them used to is that they’ve got to have some confidence. I’ve had meetings with kids… They feel like they should be doing better. I don’t feel like it’s a losing program. It needs to be back to where it should be.”

Thomas played linebacker for the ‘Dogs under then-defensive coordinator Justin Merideth. After graduating from Oklahoma State with a master’s in special education in 2014, he returned to Memorial, where he spent four years as linebackers coach under Merideth, who had risen to head coach.

When Merideth resigned following the 2017 season, Thomas left to join Jeremy Reed’s staff at Yukon.

“I did some soul-searching and realized this was a good time to get out of Edmond and go see how it’s done somewhere else,” Thomas said. “I know Yukon, that first year under Coach Reed, they kind of pummeled us out here running the option. I just kind of saw what they were doing from a team culture standpoint, and I was like, ‘You know, that would be something I would kind of want to be a part of.’ So, I called him, and they actually had a linebacker coaching job open.”

Jeff Hall was the offensive coordinator at Yukon at the time. A year later, Piedmont hired Hall as head coach, and he brought Thomas with him to be defensive coordinator.

They took over a Wildcats team that had not had a winning season in three years, but Hall and Thomas debuted with a 10-3 state semifinalist season. Piedmont was the only team that season to defeat eventual state champion Carl Albert.

Thomas said he thinks his time away has better prepared him to be the right person for this job.

“I think, being away from here, I realized what’s good about this place and then also what needs to be changed,” Thomas said. “Being at two other schools that maybe do things differently has allowed me to have a fresh slate coming back in here… We can’t just continue doing the same things over and over again. We’ve got to break that cycle. I feel like a totally different person than I was three years ago, four years ago when I was here.”

Between Piedmont and Yukon, Thomas has spent the past three seasons with teams running a flexbone offense. While Thomas said he does not intend to run that offense at Memorial, his plan is to run a pro-style run-first offense that has some of the same positives.

“The benefits of the flexbone is that it controls the ball, shortens the game, takes away possessions from the other team,” Thomas said. “All the good that you can get out of the flexbone was what I wanted to continue to instill in what we were doing offensively… We’re going to huddle. We’re going to get in the I-formation. We’re going to be multiple offensively, but everything is going to be built on the run.”

Thomas said he was a big part of starting a youth football program during his previous stint in Edmond. The current sophomores were playing in that program when he left, so those players and their parents are already familiar with him.

He said the youth and middle school programs that feed into Memorial are important, and he wants the Memorial community to know he is going to focus heavily on building on those relationships.

“I think the big thing is… you look at the Jenks, the Unions, the Broken Arrows, they’ve been good for a long time because they have this unified program 1st grade through 12th grade,” Thomas said. “So, that’s going to be a big focus of mine is our awesome youth program and then getting into our middle schools and creating relationships in the building there so that kids in 2nd grade can’t wait to be out here running on the field on Friday nights as a 10th-grader. So, that’s the biggest thing I want the community to know, is that we want to be a unified 1st through 12th grade Edmond Bulldog football program.”

Thomas said he has enjoyed catching up with people he had not heard from in a while. He has shared old stories with his wife about his time at Memorial and is grateful to be back. However, before taking the job, Thomas said he had to take a step back, remove the emotion and memories, and look at the job as an outsider.

“I didn’t want to just take something because it was where I was from and what I’m comfortable with,” Thomas said. “For me to leave (Piedmont), it was going to take a really good situation. I’ve watched pretty much every game they’ve played in the last two years on film, and I think there’s talent here. I think the commitment to football is really good. They’re allowing me to bring in a new staff. I think it’s the best stadium on the west side of the state… You’ve got, to me, everything you need to be successful here."