Following a 10-3 season that included a trip into the Elite Eight, the Eastside Eagles will look to put together another successful season, but this time under new leadership.

After the 2020-2021 season, former head coach Troy Hoff stepped down, allowing former offensive coordinator Jay Cawthon to step in and take the reins. 

“It has been different, I have been the offensive coordinator here for 16 years and having to turn over the play calling to someone else is different,” Cawthon said. “I think it has been a smooth transition [for the players], because they know who I am, and they know my philosophy and personality.”

An injury to former quarterback Jaylen Woods led Cawthon to rely heavily on the run game last season as the coordinator, and the backfield of Sincere Johnson, Dallas Johnson and Kenai Grier carried the offense through the season. With the departure of S. Johnson, Cawthon knows that D. Johnson and Grier will have to account for the bulk of the offense.

“We are going to lean heavily on our run game and we did lose [Woods] who graduated,” Cawthon said. “We feel like we are good up front on the offensive line, and you have to be able to run the ball to win.”

Following Woods’ injury, former wide-out Dayton Green moved to the quarterback position to run the offense as they continued to be a run-first team, but this season Cawthon will be handing the keys to the offense to junior quarterback Johnny Crowe.

Crowe has yet to start on Friday nights, but he will have the help of Johnson and Grier in the run game as well as the junior Saabir Berrian and senior Cole Shannon in the receiving game. 

“We have a lot of pieces in place [on the offense], but we have a lot of kids who have not played under the Friday night lights so we will see how they react,” Cawthon said. “We have a lot of skill players, especially in the backfield and on the outside.”

The defense holds more questions for Cawthon since the majority of last year’s defense graduated or transferred.

“We will need some guys to step up because of our depth issue. We will have to have some guys play both ways,” Cawthon said. “We think we have some guys who can fill some holes.”

Senior defensive tackle Jalen Farmer and junior linebacker Jean Claude Joseph III will line up on the defensive side of the ball with the most game experience, while Berrian and Johnson will play on defense as well to assist in the secondary.

The Eagles are once again in Region 8- AAAAA and face many of the same teams they were able to beat last season. Eastside went 5-1 in region play last season with their only loss coming in a close 35-34 game with Clarke Central. 

Along with the Eagles’ region schedule, they will face their county rivals, Newton and Alcovy, in weeks two and three of the season, respectively. 

“One thing we have done good in the past here [at Eastside] is that each senior class wants to outdo the previous one,” Cawthon said. “Last year’s class was very successful. Two Elite Eight [appearances], and they almost won 40 games in four years, so that is always a steppingstone for this next senior class.

With 16 years in the Eagles’ football program, Cawthon is planning on taking the plans and schemes that made this team successful. He plans to do so while adapting to the current roster and year ahead in his first year as head coach for Eastside.

“Our philosophy is not going to change, but we are going to adapt to what we have and we have done a good job of not being complacent,” Cawthon said