Norton cautions against complacency as Johnson County seeks to sustain recent streak of success

When you’re used to succeeding, how do you avoid getting used to success? 

That’s a question Johnson County head coach Don Norton spends a lot of time thinking about these days as he looks for new ways to keep the message fresh, and his team on its toes, with each passing season that the Trojans keep on winning at a high level. 

Football’s fortunes are a double-edged sword: With any blessing of repeated victory comes the curse of complacency, and a steadily creeping tendency toward entitlement and satisfaction anytime a streak of prosperity can continue long enough to be assumed. 

As the years go by, generations of players directly familiar with what built a tradition of excellence ultimately give way to new ones for which it has always existed. Following an 11-win season, and a historic region championship four-peat, that subtle danger of getting comfortable looms as large as ever this season for a JoCo team that has experienced little other than that trend of greatness. 

Not a returning member of this year’s Trojans, much like the seniors on last year’s squad who finished their career with 41 wins (an average of just over 10 per season), knows anything besides region titles and playoff berths that they’ve rattled off like clockwork over a stretch of dominance topping any in the program’s history. 

“We take that for granted,” Norton said. “We think that’s normal, and that’s not normal.” 

Those who were even old enough to remember some leaner times will still have to think back awful hard to recall the last season JoCo didn’t qualify for the postseason, in 2018, or finished with a .500 record, the year just before. But those brief lulls weren’t far removed from comparable runs under Norton, Bill Bonds and other predecessors going back to the 1970s whose pattern of great teams have made Johnson County’s preeminence into more or less a fact of life. 

“We forget, kids forget, people forget that it’s very hard,” Norton said. “It’s hard to maintain that, and we have to keep them humble, and really keep our system and keep our fundamentals and keep it simple and keep the main thing the main thing. If you’re not careful as coaches and as players and as fans and everything that makes our athletic department and our teams work, all of a sudden, you’re going to forget something and you’re going to take something for granted, and that’s when you falter.”

Keeping the right mindset…

School spirit and community pride aren’t the only reasons you see such an emphasis on Trojan football heritage and the larger-than-life legacy of its past legends at “The Blue Monster.” It’s also about elevating the school and program above the individual, and even a given team… so that players taking the field can feel the weight of what they’re tasked with upholding, or going up against. 

In his methods, Norton is just as intentional about reminding everyone that the status isn’t a birthright. It has to be achieved every day, week and season.  

He always takes things slow during the summer, starting every new team from the beginning to re-teach the basics of how the JoCo operates, because to skip any of the most routine steps in that process would be to take something important for granted. 

“We’re really teaching them the very basics right now, and still are,” he said. “I know we’re about to play, but we’re still really trying to do good on the fundamentals and be good at the small things like eyes and feet and hands.” 

Open battles for every position on the depth chart, even those with last season’s most reliable contributors, are ensuring no one begins to feel secure in their job. 

“We’ve got a QB race going on, we’ve got all these guys trying to take someone’s spot on the offensive line or the defensive line,” Norton said. “Our players know very well that what they did last year doesn’t mean anything to us.” 

While it’s true that players make plays, the Trojans look at that truth from a different angle, where no single player’s contribution is considered more important than the structure of the unique playbook that fits them all together as a cohesive unit. 

“Our system works for us, and we stick with it,” Norton said. “We believe in what we do, and try to have an identity that emulates our team personality, and really the traditions of Wrightsville, but it’s all the same.” 

The scheduling process for a new two-year cycle has also been handy in using difficult competition to serve up some doses of reality, or several, over the course of this season’s first half. 

Between scrimmages and a four-team non-region slate, point was made of lining up opponents with winning credentials and/or a reputation for playing JoCo pretty tough. 

“I scheduled as hard of a schedule as I could come up with,” Norton said. “We don’t have any boo boo teams. I really thought that that would help us out, and I hope it will.” 

The region title race, with the addition of defending quarterfinalist Jenkins County, also won’t be nearly as clear-cut as it’s been made to seem the last four years, so the Trojans’ heads should be on a swivel from August all the way through November. There will also be an 11th opponent – satisfaction – that they’ll have to get the better of every single week, and probably work a little harder each time to keep doing it. 

Though JoCo teams of late may have made success routine, this one can’t allow it to become a routine. 

“It’ll sneak up on you,” Norton said. “It’s difficult, once you start getting there.” 

The makings of a winner… 

While they’re assuming nothing, Norton and JoCo also aren’t shying away from a hard-earned expectation that they’ll win most of those games and have a shot at hoisting a fifth-straight region trophy after the initial 10 games. 

The 2026 Trojans seem to have what it takes to be just as good, if they can achieve the cohesiveness last year’s did, and others before. 

“Every year is a new team, and it takes time to figure out what they’re going to be like, and figuring out new personalities. Leadership roles change,” Norton said. “Every day is like going to chemistry class. We’re trying to develop some team chemistry.” 

The continuity has them in position to copy and paste a lot of what existed, intangibly and tangibly. Though there’s still a lot to find out when games bring some true adversity, the locker room has the look of one with the right personalities and voices in place 

“We have some kids we think are going to be some pretty good leaders,” Norton said. 

A majority of starters on both sides of the ball return, including – in a rare luxury – every single one across both their lines of scrimmage from the 2025 lineup. 

Matt McCoy (6-1, 154), 2025 sacks and tackles-for-loss leader (with 6.5 and 30) D.J. Abrams and Albert Connell are the three seniors who will once again lead the units on both sides, but some equally seasoned underclassmen in juniors Derrick Dixon (5-10, 240) and Jeffrey Dupree (6-0, 240), and a sophomore, Scottie Horton, are back with at least a season of experience.

It won’t mean anything’s a carbon copy, with some new members vying for spots, and nothing guaranteed to anyone who might feel assured of theirs. But their experience and projected depth there is definitely a plus. 

“It’s nice,” Norton said. “We’ve got some changes coming, but it makes it easier to make some adjustments. It has allowed our competition on the line to get better.” 

Out of the relatively few seniors who graduated, a handful were important ones. 

Quarterback Nathan Turberville, linebacker Ziion Wesley (last year’s leading tackler) and safety Tashawn Norris (No. 4 in stops) leave JoCo among the program’s best to ever play their positions. 

Collectively, the three leave a big gash in experience right up the middle of the depth chart. 

“They’re hard to replace,” Norton said. 

While there’s some growing room for new players in the two sets of shoes on defense, the quarterback vacancy is one the Trojans feel well-prepared to fill with multi-year backup Chance Wombles, a junior, and standout freshman Gus Ragan in a competitive battle for the job. 

Considerable playing experience, plus a level of arm talent already seen from him on the baseball field, makes Wombles (6-1, 170) the odds-on favorite, with a mastery of the offense and command of the huddle are both a good bit beyond what you’d see from many returning starters. 

“Chance is an excellent leader,” Norton said. “He sees the game.” 

But Ragan (5-10, 193), a physically and athletically promising rookie who’s also slated to spend some time at outside linebacker, is putting on some considerable heat as he also makes his case on the field (and especially in the weight room, where he is already one of the team’s top five lifters) and projects a really bright future. 

“He’s got an exceptionally high ceiling in football and baseball,” Norton said. 

Both, paired with a returning receiver in junior Daezon Devero (6-1, 155) who has shown shades of Trojan legend Zack Walker out wide catching from each this summer, figure to make the passing game the most dependable part of the offense it’s been in some time. 

Two seniors departed from the backfield rotation, but four regular ball-carriers with considerable production return to ensure the rushing attack won’t miss a step. 

Upcoming junior Jeremiah Scott (5-9, 170), last year’s leading rusher with 763 yards on 73 carries and 17 TDs (by far the most), returns at wingback as the undisputed big-play guy. 

Though the Trojans are technically replacing a starter and explosive counterpart in Norris on the other side of the formation, rising senior Jacaden Webb (5-10, 153) was so effective backing him up last year (18 carries for 241 yards and three touchdowns) that the handoff of the baton doesn’t really feel like a big change. 

Junior Jeremiah Taylor (6-0, 200), whose output (53 carries for 332 and an identical six scores) very closely mirrored that of King with whom he split carries, takes over as the No. 1 fullback. 

Sophomore Kelsey Waters (5-7, 150), off a strong freshman season with 273 yards on 52 carries and four scores, will work at both spots, with junior Zacorian Graddy (5-9, 155) and senior Jamir Wadley also in the mix for carries. 

Defensively, a lot of pieces are back in place. But the Trojans plan to look to junior Cedric Bridges (5-10, 240), who’s moving from the line to inside ‘backer, and Devero, shifting from corner to safety, to fill their two biggest voids.

Experience reigns pretty much everywhere else. Third-year starters in Scott (who was the 2025 interceptions leader with five) and Webb (who picked two and recovered as many fumbles) are back as cornerbacks. 

Taylor, JoCo’s top returning tackler with 69 total, will be the cornerstone of the linebacking corps. Waters and sophomore Jalen Daniels (5-9, 160), who saw plenty of action last year, and the freshman Ragan will also help out. 

Special teams has some major question marks, as the Trojans endeavor to replace an established kicker and punter who graduated. 

As for placekicking, sophomore Grayson Jackson has put in a lot of time on his own learning and polishing the craft over the past year to earn a shot to contribute. And that work ethic will have a lot of people rooting for him. 

“He’s one of the kids that you’re really excited for, and hope he can do it,” Norton said. 

All in due time… 

As his tenure at JoCo has gone on, Norton has become more and more comfortable with the slow pace at which things come together in a season. 

Getting scheme installed, technique perfected, lineups established and players to work seamlessly as a team is a process that younger coaches can be eager to rush, and prone to get anxious about when results don’t come quickly enough. 

But there’s never much to know in August because there’s not that much that’s decided in August, whose main battles are getting a team into football-playing shape and simply learning who can help you, and where everyone belongs.

The chemistry and strong bonds that distinguish contending teams don’t usually develop until you’ve been through the fire a time or two. That those factors remain an unsolved mystery at the start of the season no longer strikes him as unusual. 

“I don’t think you ever really know till right there when it gets tough,” Norton said. 

Those same seasons have all proven that drilling the simple things which get better with repetition usually puts JoCo in position to compete by their first game, and they’re making that the priority.

“Blocking and tackling, no question, and you can add hustle in there,” Norton said. “I think hustle goes a long way that people forget about. That’s just effort.” 

Deeper down, pride in those details is just as much a matter of character, which has been a common thread in recent teams that have upheld the strong standard. 

But that tradition people see, from up close and afar, is more about faithful execution than it is simply the bright royal blue and star on the helmet that they’ve come to associate with one of the Heart of Georgia’s strongest football brands. 

If the Trojans of 2026 finish strong, rate high in the playoff seeding and potentially make it five region titles in a row, it won’t be simply because that’s what Johnson County does. 

It’ll be because this group also stepped up, played its best and earned it. 

“I hope we can fight the complacency… the ‘Ahhh, we’re just gonna go out there and win,'” Norton said.