A little less than a month after Adam Cummings stepped down from his role as the head football coach of West Plains, the program knows the name of its new leader.
And it’s a familiar face with plenty of prior success.
Jeff Lofton, who holds more than two decades of experience on the sidelines of multiple Texas high schools, was named the second coach in West Plains program history during a Canyon ISD board meeting Monday. Previously, Lofton served as the associate head football coach and head powerlifting coach for the Wolves.
The move occurred on the heels of Cummings, who headed the program for four years, announcing he would not continue in the role of head coach for the 2026 season. Canyon ISD shared April 13 in a press conference that Cummings was moving into a new leadership role within the district, as the newly named Executive Director of Schools and Leadership.
Cummings left a difficult seat to replace, amassing a 42-13 record in four seasons and guided the Wolves to the quarterfinal round in 2025 — advancing to the postseason each year of his tenure. The Wolves also secured a second straight unbeaten District 2-4A Division I championship in 2025.
“Four years ago, I left Idalou, and decide to come with coach (Adam) Cummings down here — or up here to Canyon ISD,” Lofton said Monday night, according to longtime Amarillo sports reporter Lance Lahnert. “I knew it was going to be fun because you don’t open up very many schools in West Texas. I thought it would be a great opportunity to, under his leadership, help him put his stamp, his legacy on to a program.
“I was just blessed to come along for the ride.. He did such a great job hiring such a good staff.”
Before joining West Plains, Lofton spent 13 years at Idalou High School, with nine as the head football coach and athletic director. During that time, Lofton guided the program to a 73-33 mark in nine years at the helm of the Wildcats.
In 2023, Lofton appeared to be hired as the head coach at Brownfield, but elected to stay at West Plains where he’d accepted a job as an assistant and been a year prior. Several years later, he takes over the same program.
Lofton, a 1997 graduate of Idalou, was an assistant coach at the school starting in 2009. At the time, he was 34 years old when named the head coach of the Wildcats. He had stints as an assistant at Midlothian (2002-04), Midland Greenwood (2004-05), Monterey (2005-07) and Kennedale (2008-09) before returning to Idalou to begin the 2009 campaign.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: West Plains football hires Jeff Lofton to lead program
Reporting by Carlos Silva Jr., Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Amarillo Globe-News
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