Streator searching for next head coach with Matt Cloe’s resignation

For the second straight offseason, the Streator High School football program is searching for a head coach.

Streator’s Nov. 19 school board budget includes an item to vote on the pending resignation of head coach Matt Cloe. Cloe, a longtime football coach but first-time head coach, was hired in early 2024 to replace Kyle Tutt, who resigned from Streator in late 2023 and surprisingly took over as head coach at Plano this past summer when its head coach left the Reapers program.

Cloe led the 2024 Bulldogs to a 3-6 record, a one-win improvement over each of the previous two seasons. Two of those defeats – a surprisingly lopsided 34-7 Week 2 loss to an Ottawa team that finished 1-8 and a heartbreaking 31-30 Week 5 loss at Herscher on a wind-aided field goal as time expired – in particular stand out as having prevented the Bulldogs from making the playoffs for the first time since since 2017.

Cloe, from the Shelbyville/Pana area, works for Ameren Corporation. In a message to his players sent earlier this month, he cited a new work opportunity as the reason for his resignation as head coach.

Streator has posted the head coaching opening and is expected to screen candidates with an eye toward making a hire in the coming weeks.

The Bulldogs football program has five playoff appearances in school history – three this century – and scored its lone playoff win in 2008 under head coach Kelly Kane.

The last Streator head coach to post a winning career record with the Bulldogs was Jim Young, who went 46-39 from 1974-82.