By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Wednesday morning, the Wayne County School System announced that Wayne County Football Head Coach John Mohring has resigned in agreement with the school board.

The news comes after a 0-5 start in the second season under Mohring.

With a bye week this week for the Yellow Jackets, Wayne County will transition to new leadership this week as Athletic Director and Head Baseball Coach Justin McDonald will take over as the interim Head Coach for football.

In the 15 games under Mohring since he took over prior to the 2024 season, Wayne County was winless on the field.

One caveat to that was the 2024 matchup with Appling County. Appling defeated Wayne on the field, but Appling County was forced to vacate wins for the 2024 season due to GHSA violations in regard to recruiting and an ineligible transfer player.

There have been plenty of folks that have been unhappy around the Wayne County program with the on-the-field product, and rightfully so.

Since the beginning of 2024, Wayne County has been outscored in those 15 games by a mark of 584-100 including a 390-41 discrepancy last season. In the 10 games of 2024, Wayne County only scored more than 7 points once (the season opener against Glynn Academy) including being shutout 4 times on the year.

The offensive struggles continued this season through the first 5 games of the year as the offense only producing 106.8 yards of total offense per game (national average is 261.0 for reference).

A team that once dominated teams on the ground is now only averaging 62.4 yards rushing per game and putting up only 44 yards passing per game.

One of the most surprising numbers is this year, the Wayne County offense has only put up 28 points (including extra points), while the defense has elevated a couple scores with 2 defensive touchdowns.

Mohring took over the program after Jaybo Shaw left following the 2023 season.

Mohring left his position at Savanah Country Day in March.

At Savannah Country Day, Mohring led the Hornets to two playoff appearances and a 16-16 record in 3 seasons.

Now Mohring becomes the third GHSA coach to step down/be fired this season already with Banks County Todd Winter fired and Windsor Forest’s CJ Frazier stepping down for “personal reasons.”

Interim Head Coach Justin McDonald joined the Wayne County community when he took over the Wayne County baseball program in 2012.

Since then, he has added the Athletic Director title and also amassed over 300 wins on the diamond and is the all-time winningest baseball coach in Wayne County history.

Along the horizon for Wayne County, they open region play after the bye week with Warner Robins coming to Jesup on September 26^th before 5 straight weeks of region matchups.

This year, three of the 5 region contests are set to take place at Jaycee Stadium with road trips going to Benedictine and Ware County.

I’m never a huge fan of making coaching moves in-season, but this felt like one that needed to be made.

Now Wayne County still has everything in front of them with an entire region schedule.

Does this turn around the season? Time will tell, but I know that Justin McDonald is not only a great coach, but a fantastic person and leader of men that can hold a team together.