2026 South Charleston Football Preview

The Program at a Glance

South Charleston went 2–8 in 2025 and 1–3 in the MSAC Gold Division, fourth of five, finishing tied for 22nd in the final Class AAA rankings. Football is the part of the department with the most ground to make up.

2025 in Review

Head Coach

2026 Schedule

COMPLETE — 10 games. Source: DUBVSN site. Home/away cross-checked against each opponent's own page.

COACH DONNIE MAYS INTERVIEW

The coach of the year for you here at South Charleston. But before we talk about this season, take me back to last year. Biggest thing that you learned about yourself in your first year back here in South Charleston? I just had to get back into the swing.

·       Of being here, you know, and regrouping with the kids and and just trying to see where the problem areas were with the football program and try to fix those. And that was a that was a long process. But we finally got foundation laid with the right with the right kids out there. And, you know, we went out and gave everybody an opportunity last year to play on a Friday night, which I felt was very important.

Speaking of practice. You know, it's been your main focus. You know, this first week before we put the pads on, that's next Monday.

·       Just making sure they know what to do. Assignments, having the right play call. Having the right assign. You know, nowhere to go. Where to line up. I mean that's the biggest, biggest part of the preseason stuff already. So once we get that stuff down, we're, you know, we're athletic enough to move around, but we've got to get we've got to get our assignments down. So that's, you know, we get a couple of weeks to do that before we play Nitro. But you know that's been the focus.

You talked about how last year you were able to get a lot of guys out in the field. Is it still teaching for a lot of these guys, or is this repetition and continuing to do that while also trying to get bigger fast enough shot at the same time?

·       No, I mean, everything's going to be repetition. We want everybody to go, but we're going to try to I mean, we didn't get 30% of what we wanted to put in last year. So this year we're probably around the 50% mark of our system. But the most important thing is that they play with efficiency and, you know, understand that we play with a different tempo, and make sure that these guys understand that and go at a different rate than they've ever gone before. So, you know, getting new guys in and breaking in the old guys, it's, you know, the old guys kind of help us teach that to the new guys.

The Takeaway

This year, South Charleston plays a mix of MSAC opponents and Cardinal Conference opponents who will join the MSAC next year. Ending the season against the defending Class AAA Champions Princeton. Expectations are high at South Charleston High, but if they get off to a hot start, it can bode well for the postseason aspiration and quest for a WV Class AAA Football Championship.