WAYNESVILLE — A young Waynesville High School football team took its lumps last season, but the Spartans showed enough progress down the stretch to give coach Ben Johnson reason for optimism entering 2026.
Waynesville finished 4-6 in 2025 after a 1-4 start, winning three of its final five games. More importantly for Johnson, many of the freshmen and sophomores forced into significant roles are back with a season of varsity experience behind them.
“We really were young still, but we have a lot of guys returning that got experience last year,” Johnson said. “It’s just building off of that experience that we’ve got in the past and then a year’s worth of work.”
The Spartans are looking to climb back toward the level they reached in 2023 and 2024. Waynesville went 11-3 and reached the Division V, Region 20 championship game in 2023 before following with a 9-4 season and another regional semifinal appearance in 2024.
Last season brought growing pains, including injuries and a roster that only had six seniors.
“We started a ton of sophomores and freshmen,” Spartans senior linebacker Mac Sullivan said. “Just that experience that we gained last year, I think it’s going to come in really handy this year.”
Waynesville has experience at several key positions.
Junior quarterback Gregory Marlow returns after throwing for 1,534 yards and 11 touchdowns last season while rushing for 290 yards and a team-high eight scores.
Tyce Rutledge is also back after leading Waynesville with 43 receptions for 792 yards and five touchdowns as a sophomore.
“We’ve got returning starters at quarterback, our receivers, top receiver, Tyce Rutledge is back,” Johnson said. “And then a lot of the offensive line and the other positions too, they may not have started all season last year, but they got time.
“So now they’re just a year older, another year building that chemistry.”
The Spartans return experience defensively as well. Hudson Back led the team with 82 tackles last season as a sophomore, while Rutledge recorded 66. Senior Hayden Harrison and sophomore Daltan Taylor are back as well.
Sullivan finished with 34 tackles and two interceptions, including one returned for a touchdown.
“We’ve probably had some of the best conditioning we’ve had all offseasons since I’ve been here and just really getting after it,” Sullivan said.
Waynesville will get an immediate test when it opens against Clinton-Massie, which has defeated the Spartans in each of the past three seasons.
“Clinton-Massie, they’re a great program,” Sullivan said. “We’ve got to prove that we’ve upped our game this year. We know they lost a lot. We haven’t lost so much, so we’ve got to be ready to go.”
Johnson said he wants the Spartans’ identity to remain consistent regardless of opponent or scoreboard — playing fast, physical and with sustained effort.
That approach matches a message Sullivan said has become part of the program’s mentality.
“We love to say, ‘It doesn’t matter. Get better,’” Sullivan said. “No matter what happens — you lose by 50, you win by 50 — we love to say, ‘It doesn’t matter. Get better.’ So that’s what we try to do.”
