Taos football coach resigns
After nine seasons, state title but with drop in players, Abreu to be offensive coordinator at 6A Eldorado
Art Abreu Jr. created a legacy future Taos football coaches will endeavor to duplicate — if not exceed.
In nine seasons, he guided the program to perhaps its best run in school history, which included a Class 4A title in 2018 and a semifinal appearance in 2022. As great as those accolades ring in Abreu’s ears, he said he is most proud of the types of young adults he helped raise during that run, which ended Thursday when he resigned as head coach.
“They’re going to be some dawgs in life,” Abreu said of the players have come through his program. “I know that the guys I coached will be productive members of society. And you know what? As the ex-head coach at Taos, I’m damn proud of what I what I did for them.”
Abreu said he is leaving to be the associate head coach/offensive coordinator under coach Charlie Dotson at Eldorado. Abreu said the challenge of working for a 6A program in Albuquerque was something he couldn’t turn down.
“I was wanting to see my career progress, and with an opportunity that Eldorado and Charlie Dotson is offering, this sounds good,” Abreu said. “But to leave a program that I can look anyone in the eye and myself in the mirror and know I poured everything into my program, it was hard.”
Still, the 2023 season was a struggle for him and the Tigers. Abreu had only 33 players even after reaching the 4A semifinals the previous season. There were five games in which Taos led or had a chance to take the lead in the second half that it lost, leading to a disappointing 4-7 record.
However, the Tigers earned the 11th seed in the 4A playoffs and had a chance to force overtime at No. 6 Aztec in the final minute but their drive ended
2 yards shy of the goal line.
“We played some darn good football, but the record doesn’t show it,” Abreu said.
Abreu took over the program in 2015, and within three years had Taos in the 4A title game. Taos went 12-1 that season and defeated Bloomfield, 14-7, for the school’s first title. In nine seasons, Taos compiled a 59-37 record under Abreu and won a pair of District 2-4A titles while also making the playoffs in every season but the pandemic shortened spring season of 2021.
Abreu, a 2002 Las Vegas Robertson graduate, spent 10 years as a player and coach at New Mexico Highlands University before taking the Taos job. Abreu said his experience as a college coach should be helpful moving to a 6A program where the talent level is better overall.
“Albuquerque, it’s a metro city,” Abreu said. “So, it’s going to be different, it’s going to be interesting. I get to go against the defending state champions [Albuquerque La Cueva] and face one of the better recruits to come out of the city in Mason Posa. Coach [Dotson] has done a heck of a job, man. I’m a big admirer of the football they play, the style they play.”