Princeton – Princeton head coach Chris Pedigo has poured his heart and soul into rebuilding the football program and has successfully done so, taking it from a perennial one or two-win team to an annual playoff squad.
But after much deliberation he made good on one of his top goals – to leave it in better condition than he found it, opting to leave.
The former head coach confirmed his resignation to Lootpress Tuesday evening, citing a number of reasons for the decision to step down with his family being chief amongst them.
“I think it’s a lot of stuff,” Pedigo said. “It’s a lot of time if you’re trying to be successful and I’ve put a lot of time in. I’m grateful for the time but my daughter (a volleyball player at PSHS) is getting ready to be a senior and I’ve missed a lot of her games being a coach here. I’m excited to be a dad. I’ve got a boy that’s in middle school and my family’s sacrificed a lot. It just felt like it was time.”
Family played the biggest role in Pedigo’s decision to step away but an instance early in the season assured him this would be his final year.
“Earlier in the season, I don’t think it’s a fault and I’ve always tried to be very transparent with an open door policy,” Pedigo said. “We’re having success, and I’m not going to say the game, but it’s early in the season and we come off a big win and I have to deal with people that are not happy with playing time or ‘I should be doing this’ or ‘I should be doing that’ and I just turned around to my wife and said ‘I’m tired of dealing with this stuff.’ I probably wear my emotions on my sleeve and it got to me. It’s been a lot of work.”
“When we took the program over we had a lot of great kids but we didn’t play good football and that’s what kept me going early because we had a bunch of great kids we were working with. Then we worked with a bunch of great kids that bought into what it’s supposed to look like in the weight room and the work and the time that’s needed to be successful and I think we’ve put a really good product on the field the last few years. Talking to my staff when I told them yesterday, it’s a game of inches. We’re a handful of plays away from beating a Lord Botetourt or from beating a Parkersburg South, the No. 1 team in the state. We’re handful of plays away from being in the top two or three and that’s a tribute to my coaching staff and guys that bought in but I just felt like it’s time.”
Pedigo finishes his run with a 21-37 overall record but was 17-11 across the last three seasons, each of which ended with a playoff berth. It was the first time since 1993-95 that the Tigers made the playoffs in three consecutive seasons and a drastic turnaround from the 4-26 mark that mired the first three years of his tenure.
In addition to the turnaround, he also produced three all-staters in 2020 – the first winning season of his tenure – and two more in 2021. Wide receiver Ethan Parsons also won the Moss Award in his offense in 2020.
To top it all, all-state QB Grant Cochran threw for a program record 8,025 yards under Pedigo, being one of the key players in a senior class that helped key the turnaround. Going out with this group has been meaningful for the now former head coach.
“It’s funny,” Pedigo sad. “Our middle school coach, Jason Belcher at Princeton middle school, we were talking about their eighth grade year. We were coming off our third season and we 4-26 but we told these guys when they were freshmen that if they stuck it out they were going to the playoffs. Then we brought, and it’s unheard of, but it’s different times now. People like to go where people are winning but it’s not the same where you grew up in and area and play in an area.
“We thought we had to do our own recruiting pitch for people in our area and we knew that this group was talented so we brought them in and pitched them the vision … I appreciate their parents and I appreciate those guys because they bought in. It’s special because six of these nine seniors started a lot of games as freshmen and they took some beatings but they grew from it and the following year was pretty special. We had a lot of success in the year of Covid which was a mess.”
Pedigo is unaware of who his successor might be but believes any of the coaches on his staff are qualified for the position. As recently as last season he stated that if he left they’d be able to keep the momentum rolling.
“I really don’t (know),” Pedigo said. “I would hope it’s somebody off the staff but we haven’t discussed that really. I think I have one of the best staffs in the state and it was hard talking to them. I’m old school in a lot of ways and I really appreciate loyalty and majority of those guys have been with me for six seasons and you talk about some lean times when we first started. But they shared the vision and they knew if we kept working things would work out in our favor. There’s some good dudes in that locker room that coach our young men and Princeton would be lucky to get any of those guys if they choose.”
Pedigo has no regrets leaving the program considering the state it’s in and how the perception of it has changed.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is we did it with kids in our area,” Pedigo said. “We did it with kids that came up through our middle schools and believed in what we were doing. I thought we did a great job being active in the middle school and our middle school coaches did well promoting the bigger picture for high school football at Princeton High School. I have no regrets and I think I’m leaving it better than I found it. I could care less about wins and losses. It’s the brick by brick mentality we preached … I think next year’s team and the years afterwards, there’s potential to be some really good football teams.”
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
