High school football’s pre-made rivalry Hard feelings may welcome Grinnell head coach Sauser to Class 3A District 5 competition

The sports community in general can be a small world and in Iowa high school athletics it is even smaller. Decisions made in the now certainly can affect events later.

When the new Class 3A districts were released Friday by the Iowa High School Athletic Association, District 5 shaped up to have some interesting rivalries, but one in particular.

The district of Fairfield, Grinnell, Keokuk, Solon, Washington and West Burlington-Notre Dame has some interesting games to observe for the next two years.

Maybe the most interesting is Grinnell and WBND.

Grinnell's coach is Brian Sauser. WBND's coach is Jay Eilers. Eilers replaced Sauser at the Falcons helm. But it goes deeper than that.

Sauser was hired as the West Burlington coach in February 2017, but resigned in June of 2017.

'I felt bad about doing that kind of thing and I know the people at West Burlington were not, and probably are still not, very happy with me,” Sauser said. 'And I understand that. That's just the way that situation unfolded.”

Sauser's resignation caught West Burlington by surprise and left the Falcons in full scramble mode with the summer weight lifting and conditioning program already under way.

'It came out of the blue,” West Burlington superintendent Dave Schmitt told The Hawk Eye newspaper at the time. 'We had no idea. He and his wife had bought a house in Sperry and his wife had taken a job at AEA Area Education Agency).”

Sauser was hired to replace Nick Breuer, who began coaching the Falcons in 2014 and resigned in November of 2016. He took the head coaching job at Alburnett High School.

Eilers was 2-6 in 2017, then went 1-8 the next two seasons and 4-5 this past year.

'I accepted that job and then ended up in Fayetteville, Arkansas because my daughter went to school at the University of Arkansas,” Sauser said. 'That was kind of a hot-button issue. It was a tough deal.”

Fayetteville was the two-time defending state champions at the time and have won five state titles since 2007.

Sauser is used to making the best out of a tough deal. He was the Mississippi Valley Conference Coach of the Year in 2012 and 2013, his last two years at Iowa City West High School. West was 0-9 in 2008, his first season, and won the conference title in each of his final three seasons with a 28-6 record. His offense averaged 44.3 points per game over those three seasons. He was 35-27 in his six years at West.

Prior to that, he helped Muscatine to six playoff appearances in seven seasons, four as offensive coordinator and three as head coach. The school had been to the playoffs just once in its history before his arrival.

Sauser is also certified to teach special education, and has served in administrative roles.

He left West to go south to a head coaching job at Yukon, Oklahoma. He was 2-18 in the two seasons there, 2016 and 2017. The enrollment at Yukon was over 2,700.

Fayetteville was even bigger at 3,200, a top 50 national school.

'That was really fun, but our family was in Iowa and we just wanted to move back home,” Sauser said.

Grinnell had always been a good program, but it was struggling a little bit.

The Tigers had won at least eight games for five consecutive years including a semifinal appearance and loss to Sioux City Heelan in 2012. Coincidentally, Washington lost in the title game to Heelan in 2013.

In both 2014 and 2015, the Tigers went 4-5 then 1-8 in both 2016 and 2017.

'We thought Coach Sauser was an excellent coach when we hired him and it didn't work out for him to stay,” West Burlington athletic director Jeff Housel said. 'But he has again proven he is a good coach by turning around the Grinnell program in a short time.”

Sauser went 3-6 in his first year at Grinnell, 6-3 in 2019, and 5-2 this regular season. In the postseason, the Tigers defeated Newton, then blanked Fort Madison 35-0. The official playoffs began with 16 teams remaining in each class and the Tigers defeated Pella 6-0 before losing the quarterfinal to Cedar Rapids Xavier 21-7 to finish 9-3. Xavier lost to 3A champion North Scott in the semifinals.

'I have a chance to coach my own two boys here and grandma and grandpa can come watch,” Sauser said. 'It has been a change of pace, especially from those big high schools, but it has been fun job in Grinnell to turn the program back around.”

One son, Dodge Sauser, wasd Iowa State's first recruit of 2021. He is an offensive lineman. The other son, Dallas Sauser, will be a junior this coming season. he started at quarterback as a freshman and was 127-for-242 for 1,748 yards with 15 touchdowns and five interceptions. His sophomore season was a 60-for-102 passer with 835 yards, 10 touchdowns and a single interception as the Tigers ran the ball behind senior Wyatt Hunter, who led the state with 2,301 yards on 254 carries, an average of over 9.1 yards a carry.

Sauser has gone full circle in size of high schools, having grown up in a small town and graduated from Cascade in 1994.

'It has been an interesting path but I've got to see a lot of cool places and meet a lot of interesting people in the process,” Sauser said.

It looks to be very interesting when football games begin.