By Roger Brown
nhfootballreport.com

What current New Hampshire high school football coach has the most career victories?

Plymouth's Chuck Lenanhan? Nope.

Pinkerton Academy's Brian O'Reilly? Guess again.

The correct answer is St. Thomas coach Rod Wotton, who enters the season with a 317-65-3 record overall, and an 86-28 record in his 11 seasons at St. Thomas.

Wotton won most of those games while he was coaching at Marshwood High School, which at that time was located in Eliot, Maine (a new high school has since been built in South Berwick, Maine). Wotton's Marshwood teams won 17 state championships and at least one in each of Maine's four classes. In 1987 Marshwood had the nation's longest winning streak (45 games).

Last season may have been Wotton's best coaching job, however. He guided St. Thomas to the Division IV championship as the No. 4 seed. The Saints, who were 6-3 during the regular season, beat Somersworth (14-10) and Laconia (21-3) on the road en route to the title. It was the fourth state championship St. Thomas has won under Wotton.

"I've never had a championship team that's lost three games before," Wotton said. "In fact, I've never had one that's lost two."

The Saints were an underdog entering last year's playoffs, but they'll be the favorite to win it all from Day 1 this season. St. Thomas returns six starters on defense and five on offense. The returnees include senior wide receiver/defensive back Matt McLaughlin, who caught at least one pass in every game last year.

Hanover and Kearsarge figure to be among the teams that will provide St. Thomas will some resistance this season.

"We'll try to make the playoffs and go from there," Wotton said.

High school previews: Division IV.