2025 Football Coaching Milestones

For this year, we are going to compile the annual feature on football coaching highlights before we announce the annual state coaches of the year instead of afterwards. We also produce this feature after all of our state coaching record lists have been updated. We’re now getting close to 150 who have won 200 games or more in a career and added one to the 300 club in 2025. There is no other source of coaching records like these and we have compiled them for more than 40 years.

To check out our newly updated Gold Club list of California’s all-time winningest football coaches (all with 200 wins or more) plus category for best winning percentages, CLICK HERE.

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(All listed in alphabetical order)

Kyle Biggs (Central East, Fresno)
When we went to see the Bengals play Clovis in the regular season for a matchup of No. 1 and No. 2 teams at the time in the CIF Central Section, Coach Biggs was on the field with his family. He was recognized for winning the 100th game of his career at the school. We also were there of course at Saddleback College in December when Central East topped Pacifica of Oxnard to win the CIF D1-A state title. It was the second CIF state title that Biggs’ program has won. The first came in 2019 in D1-AA with a win over Sierra Canyon of Chatsworth.

Mark Carson (Rio Hondo Prep, Arcadia)
The Kares lost in their last two CIF state title games (to Sonora this year in D2-A and to Vanden of Fairfield last year in D3-AA), but Carson’s program winning three straight CIF Southern Section titles deserves acclaim. In this era of competitive equity playoff placements, it’s increasingly difficult for a small school like Rio Hondo Prep to even win one CIFSS title. But despite only having 82 boys in the school, the Kares took the title in D9 in 2023, then D7 in 2024 and this year beat Redondo in the D5 section final (and that was after Redondo beat Loyola of Los Angeles in the semis).

Joe Cattolico (Granite Bay)
One of only two reported coaches we have for the season who had a 200th career win this season was Cattolico. His career has had many stops, beginning in 1997 at Overfelt of San Jose. He’s been at Granite Bay since 2021 and he’s been supported on staff since his years at Pleasant Grove of Elk Grove by his father, Butch, the former head coach at Los Gatos for many years who retired in 2012 with 264 wins. They are just the second father-son duo on our all-time state list of those with 200 or more wins. The first was when Kurt Bruich won his 200th game in 2022 at Redlands Citrus Valley. He’s the son of Dick Bruich, who is still in the top 20 all-time with 292 wins from 1977 to 2008 at Fontana and Fontana Kaiser.

Kirk Clifton (Sonora)
It was only the second season of Clifton being the head coach of the Wildcats, but he made it 2-for-2 at winning CIF state titles, this time in D2-A after the team won it in D4-A in 2024. During that first season, Kirk had to coach at Sonora when his brother, Kraig, a longtime basketball coach at Calaveras (San Andreas), passed away from cancer. Sonora also will start the 2026 season with 22 straight wins, the longest current win streak in the state.

Paul Doherty (Folsom)
If you didn’t know, any coach who wins at least a second CIF state title gets listed as someone with a coaching milestone for that season. Doherty’s team won the CIF D1-AA state title over Cathedral Catholic of San Diego, which was the same team that his team in 2021 lost to in the CIF D1-AA state final. Doherty won his first CIF state title in 2023 with a win vs St. Bonaventure of Ventura in D1-A.

Tony Franks (St. Mary’s, Stockton)
While the Rams won just their first CIF state title by edging Bakersfield Christian in the CIF D2-AA final, they had to win their fourth CIF Sac-Joaquin Section title to get into the regional games. Franks’ teams also had been in a CIF state final for three previous years and have been in the SJS finals eight times. In addition, St. Mary’s also won its 18th consecutive league title since 2007 and stretched its league winning streak to 61 games since 2013. Franks also only needs two more wins to reach 250 for his career.

Josh Henderson (Immanuel, Reedley)
The one coach this year who passed the most on the all-time state list would be Henderson. He was shown with 217 wins to start the season on his years at Ambassador Christian of Fontana, Aquinas of San Bernardino, L.A. Baptist, Grace Brethren of Simi Valley and now at Immanuel since 2021. With this year’s team at Immanuel going 13-1 with a CIF Central Section title, then a one-point loss to Barstow in the CIF D4-A regional final, Henderson reached 230 wins and went past a whopping 32 others on the all-time list.

Matt Logan (Centennial, Corona)
With a 62-20 win in October over Roosevelt of Eastvale, Logan became just the 15th head coach in state history to win at least 300 games. The most recent to join the list was Simi Valley’s Jim Benkert, who ended the 2025 season with 317 career wins. Logan’s team eventually would reach the CIF Southern Section D1 championship game with a win over two-time defending CIF Open Division state champion Mater Dei of Santa Ana, a team that the Huskies beat twice during the season. Logan’s program ended the season with its third straight State Public School Team of the Year honor and that’s also four times for that in the last five years. He also had 23 league championships and 10 CIFSS titles in his career.

Frank Mazzotta (La Habra)
The Orange County Register tracks coaches with CIFSS titles and Frank tied a record held by Bruce Rollinson of Mater Dei and Bob Johnson of El Toro/Mission Viejo by winning his eighth this season. The Highlanders won their eighth CIFSS title with their win in the D4 final vs San Jacinto. Mazzotta has been at the helm at La Habra since 1998 and also won the 250th game of his career. Like many coaches, his personal accomplishments are not that well-chronicled, but we have been able to get his career record and have added it to our list.

Carson Palmer (Santa Margarita, Rancho SM)
In his first season since becoming the head coach at his alma mater last December, the Eagles made it all the way to the top of the state with their wins in the CIF Southern Section D1 title game and then the CIF Open Division state championship. Simply put, the former longtime NFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner changed the culture at the school, helped bring in key transfers at quarterback/defensive line and brought in others with NFL backgrounds to help as assistant coaches.

Ryan Reynolds (Sutter)
This was a big season for the Huskies since they won their first-ever CIF Sac-Joaquin Section title with their D5 championship game win vs Casa Roble of Orangevale. They joined the section for the 2020-21 school year after previous long time membership in the CIF Northern Section. Reynolds’ team then beat Ferndale to win a NorCal title in D4-AA, but fell short in the state final to Barstow. With the 13-2 record for the season, Reynolds also pushed his career record to 176-38 since taking over for Scott Turner prior to the 2009 season. His 82.2 winning percentage for coaches with 150 career wins or more also joins the top 10 in state history in that category.

Fred Velasquez (Balboa, San Francisco)
He was the head coach of the Buccaneers in 2021 for their first CIF state title, and he was still in charge for the state titles that they won in the past two years. Both titles came in the D7-A and Balboa was an easy winner in both games. The Bucs won this year, 42-8, over South El Monte.

Ben White (Orosi)
Longtime head coach of the Cardinals had a 10-4 team this season that went to the CIF Central Section D6 final behind RB Jason De La Cruz, one of the state’s leading rushers. The big season pushed White past the 200-win mark for his 32-year coaching career at Orosi. He’ll start the 2026 season with 206.

Note about John Beam
Although it’s been since 2003 when Coach Beam left Skyline of Oakland for Laney College, he remained well known among many high school coaches around the state until his tragic passing from a shooting in early December on the Laney campus. His career record of 157-33-5 at Skyline between 1988 and 2003 also continues to rank in the top 10 in our state record list of coaches with the best winning percentage who won 150 games or more in their careers. Coach Beam also helped us when we were part of Student Sports in the 2000s and into the early 2010s with Elite 11 or Nike football events that were held at Laney. He’ll be never forgotten in California football coaching circles.

Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports