Catholic High School of Pointe Coupee has named Matthew Moreau its new head football coach and athletic director, the New Roads school said in a June 1 announcement. Moreau, a defensive coordinator who has spent his career on other coaches’ staffs, arrives with a championship-heavy resume and takes both jobs at once.
The hire is a wager. Catholic-Pointe Coupee is handing a career assistant his first program and the keys to its athletic department in the same breath, trusting that two decades of helping build other people’s winners turns into running one of his own.
From Defensive Backs to the Top Job
Moreau, known around Louisiana sidelines as “Coach Mo,” is a graduate of Catholic High in Baton Rouge and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His coaching trail runs through some of the most recognizable programs in the southern half of the state, almost always as the man designing the defense rather than the one in charge of everything.
| School | Role | What he helped produce |
|---|---|---|
| Teurlings Catholic, Lafayette | Assistant football, assistant wrestling | State-title wrestling program |
| Catholic High, Baton Rouge | Secondary, linebackers, special teams (5 years) | Four title-game trips, two titles (later vacated) |
| Walker | Defensive coordinator | School-record season, first quarterfinal |
| Acadiana | Defensive coordinator | District championship |
The Baton Rouge Years
Five of those seasons came at his alma mater, where Moreau worked the secondary, the linebackers and special teams. The program reached four state-championship games and won two while he was on staff. He coached under Gabe Fertitta, who left for a University of Louisville assistant job in February 2021, and then under David Simoneaux, who took over before moving on to Central High.
Coordinator at Walker and Acadiana
As defensive coordinator (the assistant who runs the defense), Moreau ran the unit during the best stretch in Walker history. The Wildcats posted school-record 10 wins in 2023 and reached the playoff quarterfinals for the first time, beating Benton and shutting down Northshore in a 28-2 win before falling to Ruston. The Advocate documented Walker’s first quarterfinal appearance in school history that fall. At Acadiana, one of the state’s most decorated programs under longtime coach Doug Dotson, his defense helped deliver a district title.
One Hire Fills Two Open Jobs
The detail that separates this from a routine coaching move is the second line on the announcement. Moreau is not only coaching football; he is the athletic director (AD, the administrator who runs every sport at the school). At a small private campus, that is two full-time jobs stacked on one person, and he has done neither before at this level.
The AD job carries a load that has nothing to do with calling a defense on Friday night:
- Scheduling and budgets across every varsity and junior-varsity team
- Hiring and overseeing coaches in sports he has never run
- Facilities, transportation and game-day operations
- Eligibility and compliance paperwork with the state association
- Booster relations and fundraising in a small community
This is where the bet sharpens. A first-time head coach usually gets to focus on his roster while someone else handles the department. Moreau will be doing both, which is part of the appeal for a budget-conscious school and part of the risk for a coach learning the chair for the first time. He is far from the only program betting on a fresh face this offseason, as another Louisiana-adjacent school showed when a high school handed its program to a new head coach for the 2026 season.
The Coaching Tree Behind Coach Mo
Read the names on Moreau’s resume and you get a map of one of the deepest coaching trees in Louisiana high school football. Fertitta built a winner in Baton Rouge before jumping to the college ranks. Simoneaux, the coach Moreau also worked under there, had himself come from Catholic-Pointe Coupee, where he spent years as head coach before the Baton Rouge job and later Central. Dotson has spent a generation winning at Acadiana.
So Moreau now lands at the same New Roads program one of his former bosses once ran. That continuity is the case the school is making, and it leaned into the faith-and-development language that small Catholic programs tend to sell.
Coach Moreau’s commitment to excellence, leadership, faith, and student development make him a tremendous fit for our school community.
That came from the school’s welcome announcement. The pitch is familiar to anyone who follows prep athletics, where coaches are sold as much on what they do for teenagers off the field as on the scoreboard. Veteran coaches in other states make the same argument about why school athletics build character and future success for the students who pass through their programs.
An Asterisk Hangs Over the Headline Titles
One line on the resume needs a footnote, and it is a big one. The two state championships Moreau helped win in Baton Rouge no longer officially exist. In early 2025, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA, the body that governs prep sports in the state) stripped Catholic High of its 2017 and 2020 Division I titles, along with the 2018 and 2019 runner-up finishes, over violations the investigation traced back to 2017.
The school accepted the penalties without appeal. Fertitta, who went 43-8 in four years there, had already resigned in February 2021, well before the ruling came down.
None of that erases the coaching Moreau did or the players he developed. What it does mean is that the trophy line he carries to New Roads sits on vacated banners. For a hire being sold partly on a championship pedigree, the championships themselves now carry a state-issued caveat that any honest accounting has to include.
What the Hornets Hand Him in New Roads
Moreau is not walking into a rebuild. Catholic-Pointe Coupee plays out of New Roads in the LHSAA’s small-school ranks, listed in Class 1A’s District 5 and in the Division IV bracket for select schools. By the stat services’ count, the Hornets went 9-3 in 2025 and finished third in their district, a respectable floor for a coach taking over a program rather than building one from nothing.
- 9-3 overall record in the 2025 season
- Third place in Class 1A District 5
- Competes in the LHSAA’s Division IV select-school playoff bracket
- A full slate of programs, from baseball to wrestling, now under Moreau’s AD oversight
That winning baseline raises the bar more than it lowers it. The announcement did not name whom Moreau replaces or why the seat opened, so the cleanest read is the program he inherits, not the one he leaves behind. A 9-3 team hands its new coach expectations, not excuses, and the athletic-director title means a down year in any sport lands on his desk too. You can see the wider athletic operation he now runs on the Catholic of Pointe Coupee staff and athletics pages.
Moreau starts work this summer with his wife Kristen and son Sam joining him in the Hornet community. The team opens its 2026 schedule in the fall, and that first Friday under the lights is when the bet gets its first real test.
