Chris Smithley named head football coach

Following the retirement of Rick Shepas from the head coaching position for the Waynesburg University football team, Chris Smithley stepped in for the 2017 season as the interim head coach. Now, after a recent change, Smithley has been named as the next head coach for the football team, dropping the interim title.

Following the conclusion to the football season, Smithley said one of the programs goals was to officially confirm who the next head coach was.

“That was definitely in our minds and that was a goal of ours, [securing the head coach position], not just as a staff but as a team,” Smithley said. “I think the players knew that and that was our goal across the board–to keep this thing going in the direction we have this thing going in.”

When Smithley originally joined the team as the interim head coach at the end of the Spring semester, Larry Marshall, athletic director, said the goal was to sign someone who was capable of being the next head coach.

“[Smithley] was the most likely one to take over [as head coach] and hopefully [we would] see how he would progress and how he would handle himself and what he would do,” Marshall said. “Hopefully he would be good enough we could go and move him up to head coach.”

Towards the end of the season, Marshall said the decision was made to drop the interim title and bring Smithley back as the head coach for next year.

“It was near the end of the season, [we decided], I think it was just looking at the whole body of work,” Marshall said. “The wins weren’t what we wanted, but he did an excellent job recruiting as the coach.”

During the season, the Yellow Jackets went 2-8 and finished ninth in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference. The two victories for Waynesburg came in Week Eight and Week Nine against Thiel and Saint Vincent, respectively. Individually, the Jackets had one athlete nominated as second team All-PAC with eight honorable mentions.

Moving into the off-season, Smithley said one of the focuses for the team is retaining the players they have while bringing in new recruits.

“The first thing what we’re working through right now is just dealing with making sure we are minimizing as much retention as possible and keeping this group of guys together,” Smithley said. “We had a really good young class, so [we are] recruiting and trying to bring another great class in – similar to the class we had last year – and just continue to build off that.”

Moving forward, Marshall said he has ultimate trust in Smithley’s ability to lead the football team after seeing how he overcame the challenges of the 2017 season.

“[Smithley] has done everything that we’ve asked of him,” Marshall said. “He’s kept the team together and like I said, a lot of the problems that most people have, you get to see how he handles them and he did an excellent job with that.”