Harrisburg head football coach Brennan Claas resigned last Monday after three years and back-to-back district championship game appearances with the Bulldogs.

Claas took over in 2023 for Steve Hopkins, who led Harrisburg to a 7-3 overall record and a conference title in his fourth and final year at Harrisburg in 2022. In Claas’s first-ever season as a head coach, the Bulldogs finished 3-7 overall. In his second year, Harrisburg finished 7-5, falling just six points short of a district title against powerhouse Tipton.

Claas and the Bulldogs made it back to the district championship again this season, falling to undefeated Salisbury, which made it all the way to the Class 1 state quarterfinals.

The Bulldogs’ postseason run came after an injury-stunted regular season that included a five-game skid without their starting quarterback. But Claas and the Bulldogs outscored their final two regular-season opponents by 64 points and gutted out a district semifinal win over Marceline, 44-14, to return to the championship game.

Claas said returning to the championship game was a highlight of the season. “Back-to-back district championship appearances, you have to be pretty happy about that. It would have been great to win one, obviously, but that’s not how it goes. I’m just really thankful for the group of kids that allowed us, as a coaching staff, to establish the kind of culture we wanted. I thought we thought we had something good going.”

While Claas doesn’t know where he will land next season, he hopes to end up somewhere closer to family in the Kansas City area. “Since the announcement, there have been a lot of people who have reached out. The fraternity of coaching is great. It’s a very large network,” he said.

Harrisburg is not the only area school making a coaching change. In November, Fayette High School coach Kole Hinton stepped down, also after three years. The Falcons announced in January that veteran head coach Kenny Grubb would take over the Falcons next season after three seasons at California High School.