On the surface, Dobson’s hiring of George De La Torre as its new football coach is a pretty good one.
The guy can coach. He turned around South Mountain in the mid-2000s and brought consistency to an otherwise hot-and-cold program with three consecutive playoff appearances and went to the 5A Division II semifinals in 2007.
Then came another challenge in Florence, a program whose success had deteriorated significantly in that same period. De La Torre came in and went 1-9 in 2008 with only one senior willing to stay on board with him.
But the non-seniors bought into his ways, and three consecutive trips to the Division III/Class 3A state semifinals followed.
As a couple longtime East Valley coaches who are friends of De La Torre noted this week, he goes where a reclamation project exists.
Now comes Dobson, and while De La Torre is obviously no stranger to Mesa (where he still lives), its school district (he was an assistant at Westwood, Red Mountain and Skyline) or resurrecting football programs, this one is a different animal.
It’s obviously much bigger in size than the other two stops — which can be good and bad — with plenty of neighboring schools available for kids who want to open enroll elsewhere. Keeping them in Dobson boundaries will be priority No. 1.
Whether De La Torre will teach at the school wasn’t immediately known, though it seems likely. The problem is having enough help at school from whatever staff he puts together (same with current vacancies at Westwood and Gilbert).
As most coaches will attest, there’s no substitute for having multiple assistants on campus during school, and that’s unlikely to work in his favor.
De La Torre’s balance between “disciplinarian” and “player’s coach,” energy and accumen have worked wonders the past few years with other downtrodden programs. There’s no reason he shouldn’t get time and help from administration to succeed — a trip to the Division I semifinals in two years is wholly unrealistic — but let’s hope he’s prepared to find out fast it’s going to be tough sledding to get the Mustangs galloping for the first time in at least a decade.

Related posts:

• Future Westwood, Dobson football coaches: Be ready So far it’s been pretty quiet on the East Valley...
• Everything is bigger in Texas That includes (apparently) the economy and budgets. The Arizona Interscholastic...
• De La Torre getting it done Yes, Florence went down badly, 53-6, to 3A power Blue...