A five-year-old Eli Reinhart tugged on his father Dennis’s shirt as he walked out the door to coach Montrose High School in the 1998 Michigan state championship. 

“Hey, Dad,” Eli said. “I drew some plays up for you! If you need them, here they are.”

Dennis took the paper with a smile, folded it up and put it in his back pocket. He and his wife had adopted Eli as a baby from South Korea, but he’d still inherited Dennis’ love for football. Most kids watched cartoons; Eli watched Montrose’s season-long highlight tapes set to classic rock music on VHS so often that he’d hear a song at the dinner table and say, “1993, Montrose versus Goodrich,” because that’s what he associated the song with.

That night, Montrose’s offense faced a fourth-and-1 deep in the ballgame. If they converted, they won the state championship. If they didn’t, they gave the other team a potential game-winning drive. In the biggest moment of his coaching life, Dennis reached into his back pocket for a reminder of his son.

“I grabbed it, rubbed it a few times and made the play call,” Dennis said. “We got the first down and won the state title.” 

Dennis kept his son’s playsheet after the win, deciding it was his good luck charm. He brought it to the next state title game he coached in. It was as essential as his headset. In fact, he kept the paper in a briefcase for 25 years until Eli grew up and coached in his first state championship as North Crowley’s offensive coordinator. Dennis stopped his son as he headed out the door to drive to AT&T Stadium. 

“Hey, Eli,” Dennis said. “I’ve got some plays for you if you need them.”

Eli didn’t make a call from his first playsheet in North Crowley’s 50-21 win over Austin Westlake. But he’ll have that memento from Michigan with him in central Texas as he takes his first head coaching job at Hutto High School. 

Reinhart may be 31, but he’s coached for 13 years. His offensive philosophy is born from his experience as Montrose High School’s offensive coordinator for five seasons while a student at Saginaw Valley State. His hometown was built on the automotive industries in nearby Flint and Saginaw. The school’s enrollment has dwindled since the economy went belly up in 2008. The fewer players they had, the more Reinhart had to manufacture points by putting players in motion and using option-based principles. 

Over Reinhart’s three seasons at North Crowley, the Panthers went 42-2 and scored over 50 points per game because the offensive coordinator was coaching a team full of Division I prospects like they had none.

“I think we do more than the average person would if they had as talented of kids as we have (at North Crowley),” Reinhart said. “I think a lot of people would just say, ‘They’re really talented. They’re going to go make plays. We don’t need to do a whole lot.’ That’s the opposite of what I feel. I feel like I’m still coaching small-school football, where we’re going to use every ounce of athleticism and talent that we have.”

That’s why he’s been silently keeping receipts this offseason. He’s heard and seen it all, the murmurs that his explosive offense can’t translate to Hutto. Every whisper is like a wood slab Reinhart adds to the fire that burns under his calm demeanor.

“The thing that everyone is glossing over with Hutto is that they have really talented players here,” Reinhart said. “Looking around at our freshman and middle school kids, they’re going to be good here for a long time. I think people are mistaken thinking that we can’t replicate some of the success we had at North Crowley.”

He took a leap of faith to Texas in the summer of 2021 for an opportunity like this. He bounced around Michigan as an offensive assistant at Ferris State, Saginaw Valley State and Northwood University until he reached Central Michigan as an offensive analyst. But he felt stuck in an off-field analyst role, unable to coach the players in practices. As he weighed his future, Central Michigan offensive coordinator Kevin Barbay, a Nederland graduate, worked Texas high school football into every conversation he could. 

Reinhart hopped on the Texas High School Coaches’ Association job board and saw an opening at Austin Anderson High School. The interim athletic director called him and said they’d be at a little coaching convention in San Antonio if he wanted to interview there. Reinhart’s first introduction to Texas high school football was the THSCA Coaching School, where every collegiate and high school coach in the state flocked in late July. He decided he’d join the fraternity then and there.

Reinhart told his father he was going to Texas, packed all his belongings in his car, and arrived a week before fall camp started.

“I just knew that wherever he went, he was going to be successful,” Dennis said. “If there’s something he didn’t know, he was going to study until he knew it.”

North Crowley head coach Ray Gates had that same sense when he interviewed Reinhart for the offensive coordinator job ahead of the 2022 season. Reinhart says he would’ve been content staying at North Crowley under Gates for much longer. After three seasons, however, he knew he’d learned enough about building relationships with the football players to be a successful branch of Gates’ coaching tree. 

“He had no prior knowledge that I even existed before I was brought up in an interview,” Reinhart said. “He believed in the person that I was and the mission and the goal that I had.”