The Social Circle Redskins football program wrapped up their spring workouts this past week.

With the attention now turned to summer practices, head coach Rob Patton has his focus set on building the team’s depth and conditioning.

“Our biggest takeaways were that we need to improve our conditioning over the course of the summer to prepare for this fall and we also need to build depth,” Patton said. “We had some new faces step up and make some big plays in our team scrimmages and also in our scrimmage game as well.”

The need for depth comes after the Redskins lost multiple seniors who started for the team in 2023.

Among the departures were Sean Crews, Kam Durden, Coi Robinson and CJ Colclough.

Along with the Redskins offense losing Crews and Durden, the unit will be under new leadership in 2024 with the hire of offensive coordinator Jeremy Holder.

“Coach Holder and all of our players have done a great job this spring and early into this summer [of] installing and learning our new offense,” Patton said. “Our kids have done a great job so far of picking up on the new terminology and I am excited to watch everything come together over the next two months as we prepare for the season.”

For the second consecutive season, Patton will go into the year with a new starting quarterback.

After the team held a quarterback battle between Crews and Jude Nelson last offseason, two new players are competing for the role.

Senior Luke Cross, who is the brother of former Redskins quarterback Logan Cross, was tabbed as one of the options along with sophomore Remi Farmer.

“We have two guys right now competing for the quarterback job,” Patton said. “Luke Cross, who played wide receiver for us all of last season and played quarterback on JV his sophomore year, showed a lot of growth and promise during spring ball. He made some incredible throws in our scrimmage game and also showed us his toughness when he took some very hard hits during the scrimmage and got back up every time and kept competing.  

“Remi Farmer is also competing for our quarterback job.  Remi played quarterback for our JV team last season. Remi showed a lot of progress during spring practice as well. He made a few really good runs during team scrimmages and he also has a strong arm. It is exciting to watch them compete every day in practice.”

On the defensive side of the ball, Patton shared his insight about the depth at all levels and how he will look to many of them for leadership.

“Defensively we have Bristol Evans, Levi Kendall, and Jameccus Hardge at linebacker who are all returning starters who are aggressive, hard working kids who we are going to count on for leadership,” Patton said. “In the secondary we have Jaylen Victor and Sawyer Parr returning as starters that we are going to lean on for leadership.”

Another returner for Patton in 2024 is his kicker, Preston Guy. Guy was named as a First Team All-Region placekicker after the 2023 season.

As the team turns its attention to the summer practices, Patton is looking for his team to get closer through various workouts and camps.

“The main thing we are looking to see from our kids this summer is for us to come together as a team. Football is the ultimate team game and if we can all come together as one over the course of the summer then we will be ready for a great season,” Patton said. “We want them to focus every day and every rep on getting better. We are doing some local 7v7’s this summer, a tournament at UGA, [a] padded camp and then our team camp right before school starts. How we gel as a team over the next two months will be a good indicator of where we are, heading into the season.”