River Ridge Football: Blacksburg coach leaving

“The Patriot” has learned that Blacksburg head football coach Thad Wells is resigning. Wells will be taking the same job at Mooresville High School, located between Charlotte and Lake Norman, North Carolina.

Mooresville is a Class 4A school with an enrollment of over 1,600 students. Mooresville finished fifth in the “I-Meck” Conference, short for Mechlenburg County, last season with a 4-8 record. Mooresville was rated the 56th best 4A football team in Carolina in 2017.

Wells was the head coach at Blacksburg for three seasons, posting records of 6-5 in 2015, 10-5 in 2016, and 11-2 in 2017. His Blacksburg teams lost in the first round of the playoffs in 2015, won the Class 3A state championship with a dramatic playoff run in 2016, and lost last season in the region final to Salem. Wells has also been an assistant football coach at area schools Radford, Giles, and Richlands. He was also a head coach at a private South Carolina school in 2014.

Wells’ Blacksburg teams edged Pulaski County, 17-13 in 2016 and won handily last season, 53-28, but the Cougars took the measure of Blacksburg in 2014, 39-19, and 2015, 41-32.

Sources indicated to “The Patriot” that officials at Blacksburg High have made no move toward hiring the new football coach as the official announcement will not come until Tuesday, Feb. 13 when the Mooresville School Board has its next session.

The Patriot