news-engine

Jaylon Smith settles into new position as North Side football interim Head Coach FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) - It’s the start of a new era for North Side football, as former Bishop Luers, Notre Dame and NFL star Jaylon Smith takes the reins as interim head coach. Smith was named the interim successor to previous head coach Ben Johnson on Monday, Aug. 24, and made his head coaching debut for North Side Friday night, helping the Legends secure a dominant 40-2 victory at New Haven over the Bulldogs. Despite his ties to Bishop Luers, Smith has had a role on the North Side football staff since the 2024 season, primarily focusing on the defensive side of the ball until last week. The new head coach has also added his brother and former NFL running back, Rod Smith, as a contributor to the coaching staff. For Smith, stepping into this new opportunity came with a good amount of different feelings. “There’s a lot of emotions, but you have to keep the main thing the main thing,” Smith said. “What matters is keeping our kids together, keeping our coaching staff on path as it pertains to the one mission that we ultimately have. It’s important that we’re getting our kids prepared and practiced with the right attitude and with the right effort.” New interim assistant head coach Larry Davis feels Smith stepping into the role of head coach has been a positive experience so far. “He identifies and he fixes the defense, so now he’s kind of doing it for the offense, too,” Davis said. “It makes my job a little easier because he’ll be in the head set [saying] we’re doing this, we need to do that.” After starting this new chapter last week, Smith is already instilling some of the same knowledge he’s learned on and off the field during his football career into his group of Legends. “The mark of greatness is consistency,” Smith said. “The speed of the leader is the speed of the pack. In order to win championships, it’s about how many times can I repeat starting fast and finishing strong. These are things that we’re hounding in on our kids every single day, but they’re the ones that got to go out and put in the work.” When asked if he was interested in being head coach long term, Smith said all that matters is what the team does now. Smith and the team are now preparing for the beginning of conference play Friday night, set to host Northrop with kickoff set for 7 p.m. Copyright 2026 WPTA. All rights reserved.