Andrews – The Wildcats are off to a less than ideal start to their 2025 season. The Andrews varsity football team has gone winless in their first six games, including its first two Smoky Mountain Conference matchups.
They started the season with back-to-back road losses to Madison (3A, 3-4) and Smoky Mountain (5A, 3-4). After the Cats lost their home opener to Mitchell (2A, 4-3), they returned home to close out their non-conference games with a loss to the Anderson Cavaliers (1-5) from South Carolina.
The Cats kicked off conference games against 2A Swain County (3-3) on the road. They hit the road for their second SMC game against their first 1A opponent, Robbinsville (5-2), and suffered another loss.
Andrews head coach Jason Johnson’s main takeaway from their season so far is that the effort has been great, but injuries have hurt them.
“I think we’ve had great effort. Like I’ve said before, injuries kind of got us, and the young kids have had to step in there and play. We’ve just not been executing the way I’ve I want us to execute,” he said.
“We’ve not been as physical as I want us to be, but these are all things we can work on and we’re going to work on them this open week. Just getting better, execution, getting lined up, getting our assignments and just trying to become better football players.”
Johnson said his team used the open week to prepare and focus on the final four games of the season.
“We’ve focused on Rosman, Murphy, Cherokee and Hayesville. Our focus has been on us and getting better, making sure we can compete with those schools. We’ve worked on our tackling, tackling’s got to improve. We have to get our offense going. We have to get more consistent stops on defense, have to get off the field on third down,” he said.
“Our goal is to finish strong in the conference, and then make a run in the playoffs. That’s our goal, and the kinds of goals we’ve set this past week. Getting healthy, doing the things we need to do to stay healthy.”
Johnson said he’s looking forward to each of the Cats’ final four games. He said he tells the players to take it one opponent at a time – day by day, brick by brick.
They will return to action at home Friday night, when Andrews faces Rosman (1A, 2-5). The Cats will celebrate homecoming while looking for their first win of the season.
The Cats will return home for the always anticipated matchup against Murphy (2A, 4-2) on Oct. 17. They will play their final regular-season home game against Cherokee (2A, 2-5) on Oct. 24. Then they will hit the road to close out their regular season on Oct. 31 against Hayesville (2A, 5-2).
Andrews was ranked No. 20 in the 1A RPI-based rankings at press time Tuesday, according to the N.C. High School Athletic Association. According to MaxPreps, the Wildcats are ranked No. 13 in 1A.
The Wildcats sit at No. 6 in the SMC standings at press time. Friday night’s game against Rosman will kickoff at 7:30 p.m., with homecoming festivities taking place at halftime.