by Clancey Cleveland
Jan 18, 2012

Southmoore Head Football Coach Chris Jensen will head to Shawnee to coach Oklahoma Baptist University’s revival of their Bison football team. The news was officially announced at an OBU press conference Wednesday morning.

 

“Coach Jensen is an outstanding representative of OBU’s values,” OBU President Dr. David Whitlock said. “We are confident that he is the man to lead the re-birth of Bison football.”

 

Oklahoma Baptist has not had a football team since 1940.

 

"We are taking steps to build the program effective immediately, and our team will play a full season of competition in the fall of 2013,” Whitlock said.

 

Jensen launched the football program at Southmoore High School in 2008. Now he will be establishing a program again, this time at the collegiate level.

 

“God has aligned me with the university,” Jensen said. “This is an opportunity that I believe God had for me. I’m where I need to be right now.”

 

The Southmoore football team was made aware of the upcoming changes Tuesday afternoon in a meeting with their now former coach.

 

“I challenged those guys to continue to focus on their goals in front of them,” Jensen said. “Even though I wasn’t going to be apart of that anymore, that doesn’t need to interrupt their goals at all.”

 

Although he was shocked, quarterback Tre Edwards said he is glad his coach is pursuing his dreams.

 

“I think he always wanted to be a head coach in college football,” Edwards said. “Hopefully we will find another Christian coach like him.”

 

Jensen will leave behind not only a winning tradition, but a tradition of high moral character, says SaberCat junior tight end Jackson Stallings.

 

“Coach instilled in us how to work hard and condone ourselves outside and inside the classroom and on the field,” Stallings said. “I think those traditions will stick.”

 

Jensen has spent 13 years in the Moore Public School system. Before being named as the Southmoore head coach, Jensen was at Westmoore as the defensive coordinator and had been at Moore as the offensive line coach.

 

Once Jensen resolves his contract with Moore Public Schools, he will turn in a resignation letter. At that time a statewide search for a new head football coach will begin, MPS Athletic Director Carl Franks said.

 

“We’re excited for the future,” Stallings said. “Whoever we get in there, we’ll have the same mindset to win the city championship, get to the playoffs, and contend for the state title.”