With spring practice officially in the books, attention turns to June 1, the official first day of high school football workouts.

Gainesville's Kharim Hughley returns as one of the top QBs in the area. File Photo

Gainesville's Kharim Hughley returns as one of the top QBs in the area. File Photo

Several teams in the AccessWDUN coverage area are looking for new names to fill spots left by graduation. It's go time for those programs, and for every program across the state, as preparation for the 2026 campaign officially gets underway.

We caught up with a few coaches from around the area, and below are their thoughts on how spring football practice set the tone for the summer.

Tommy Jones, Cherokee Bluff 

"I thought we had a very productive 10 days of spring practice. The effort and energy from our kids were fantastic, and we got them lots of quality reps. Our focus in the spring is primarily based on development. We try to teach from the foundation and emphasize the basic fundamentals of blocking and tackling. We have a long way to go, but I’m very pleased with our progress at this point."

 "We have some significant holes to fill after losing some major contributors last year. We were able to begin answering some of those questions this spring, but we are still looking for some guys to step up in key positions. Our summer workouts are going to play a vital role in figuring these things out.”

Jaybo Shaw, Dawson County

"All in all, we had a great inter-squad scrimmage the other night, where we were able to play pretty much everybody and got a lot of film, a lot of reps, but the growth, too. I'm really proud of these upcoming seniors, you know, and what they're trying to establish and get us back to where we want to be. Certainly proud of them, but came out of spring healthy, which is always a positive, and was able to get a lot of questions answered, as far as some guys playing some different spots or looking at some different personnel groupings, so we were able to answer a lot of questions. I thought we did a really good job, stayed healthy, and springboarded into the summer workouts."

Dustin Canon, East Forsyth

“Yeah, we had a really, really strong spring. Super excited about Team Six, the sixth team in our school history. You know, we've had a pretty good few years here with four winning seasons in a row, and three playoff appearances in a row, but a lot of those teams were senior-heavy, and this year's kind of different. We have a smaller senior class; we have a group of 10 seniors, so there's a lot of opportunity all over the field. I'm certainly excited about this year, because we've had a great offseason, a great spring, and started working on the on-field identity of this team. We are looking at our strengths and areas that we can grow this summer, and build some fundamental skills through spring, so we're excited to get going. It's going to be an important summer for us, and try to develop our roster now.”

Santavious Bryant, Gainesville

"We had some goals that we had set out for the spring, you know, number one, making out of it extremely healthy, and we were able to do that. But the biggest thing was just kind of getting our kids to understand the way that we're going to practice – our expectation of everything on the field and off the field. I think our kids have done a tremendous job of taking on new things and running with them – learning on the fly and very quickly. So, I was definitely pleased with the way that spring ball went. I think we had some really good competitive practices, and our kids kind of took the flow of practice and did a really good job running with that. Also, just met the expectations of practice and did a good job of meeting them. We left the spring happy and ready for the summer."

Benji Harrison, Habersham Central

"Yeah, I thought we had a really good spring practice. I thought we got a lot of good work in. We tried to kind of identify who our guys are, who are the guys that can help us play on Friday night, who are ready, and who are not quite ready, who are on the borderline and need to have a great summer to be there. But I thought we were able to accomplish a lot of that, and I feel like we found out who we are at our depth and who we can be. So, I thought I was pleased with our spring practice."

Korey Mobbs, Jackson County

"The biggest emphasis for us is replacing three guys up front on the offensive line, and then our entire defensive line. But overall,  we're pleased with where we are. We're nowhere near where we need to be in that, but that's high school football. You're going to graduate, guys, and you hope you build a program of depth and forecasts years ahead of what that's going to look like. So, we feel like our numbers are really strong. We're excited about some guys stepping up in the spots we mentioned specifically. We've got two guys [at quarterback] that you know had really good springs for us, and so we'll see how that plays out. We're excited about returning some specific skill spots that should be looked at as a strength for us next season."

Travis Noland, Jefferson

“I felt like we had a good spring, you know. We do have a lot of holes in the field. We had 31 seniors, so there's a great opportunity out there for a lot of young men, but we thought we had a productive and good spring."

Heath Webb, Lumpkin County

"I'm really proud of the way we played [in our scrimmage]. Beating East Hall 41-7 was important just to create that momentum, but I think probably what we're most proud of is so many new faces – eight to nine, depending on how you want to count it, new starters on defense, and another four or five on offense. Those new faces played really well. Really proud of the way that those guys worked all spring long, and so we've kind of identified somewhat of a starting lineup. We still have some positions that are up for grabs, but we have a pretty good idea of what that looks like now, and going into the summer, we've got to build depth now that we've kind of identified what the lineup should look like."

Robert Craft, North Forsyth

"We had a really good spring. We felt like we are fortunate to return about seven starters on each side of the ball, so we have what we feel like is a lot of experience returning with we played a lot of 10th graders last year, we have another small senior class coming up, but our rising juniors and rising sophomores are two large classes, and a lot of those guys got experience last year, so we were excited with them. It was year two with our offensive coordinator, so you could tell there were some big differences. Just a lot more comfortable with the system and the players, so it was really good. The first and biggest thing is that we stayed healthy, and I felt like we got what we needed done."

Tim Whitmire contributed to the article.