FLEMING ISLAND — With district and region championships ramping up for baseball, track, weightlifting, softball, tennis and flag football, area sports fans are very aware that spring football will be upon us starting April 27.

Among the dilemmas of most coaches is to replace star athletes from last year, play a decent team in their spring game to assess those returning and new faces and to also set the tone for a long, hot summer of conditioning, position camps and team bonding trips.

First up are the spring games for 2026:

Keystone Heights and Ridgeview both have new head coaches for 2026 with Steve Reynolds and Merlin Smith both vacating their positions. Keystone Heights will have former Ridgeview High coach Cameron Porch returning to Clay County while Ridgeview will have a coach known for his love of fast athletes on the football field and on the track, Jason Smith.

Porch, who returns from programs at Trenton, Berrien in Georgia, Mount Dora, Ridgeview and Baker County in the past decade with a knack of adding a strong weightlifting edge to his teams.

At Trenton, Porch was in a 2024 state semifinal and was at Ridgeview 2016-2018 with an 11-19 won loss record and Bronson from 2012-2014. Porch was at Mount Dora 2020-2021.

Porch has a 2-17 FACA District Coach of the Year trophy on his shelf and also one for the 2015 Region Weightlifting Coach of the Year.

In 2025, Porch was the offensive coordinator at Baker County who made the 3A state playoffs with a first round loss to eventual champion Raines. Smith, who runs his Rise and Grind personal training facility in Orange Park, brings back a defensive mindset that brought Ridgeview an 8-3 playoff season under coach Matt Knauss in 2020. Smith replaces Merlin Smith, who got two wins last year after span of 1-9 seasons prior to his arrival.

For their spring football games, Keystone Heights will play Branford, a rural class program that was 7-4 last year with a first round playoff loss to powerhouse Hawthorne on May 15 at Keystone Heights.

Ridgeview will try to create a winning season under Smith with a road game to Crescent City on May 15. For the other area teams, Clay, under second year coach Jeff Gierke and with one of the best quarterbacks in north Florida in senior Landon Martin, will try to build on a strong second half of their season with a three-way scrimmage at Beachside with Creekside included on May 20.

Middleburg, with a garage full of graduated starters, will be rebuilding coach Ryan Wolfe's roster. The Broncos have a second Addison at running back, but lose a plethora of heft at the line of scrimmage. The Broncos will travel to Palatka on May 15 to take on former Keystone Heights coach Lantz Lowery and his 10.2-100 meters running back Kedric Wright. Palatka was 6-7 in Lowery's rookie season last year with a 14-12 playoff loss to FIT champion Dunnellon.

For Oakleaf, coach Chris Foy loses his two-year starting quarterback Jack McKissock and two of his best defensive stars in Jordin Price and Chris Jules but returns with one of the top playmakers in Florida in Michael Conner. The Knights will travel to Andrew Jackson on May 21.

Fleming Island, with coach Tom Macpherson in his second term as head coach and with a near-playoff finish last year amidst a coaching tornado situation to start the season last year, returns to take on Fletcher on the Senators; newly astroturfed football field on May 21.

Macpherson has his seasoned quarterback back, Eric Gentry, but loses two NCAA Div. I athletes in safety Sebastian Cruz (Rutgers) and Jarius Rodgers (Syracuse).
Orange Park coach Marcus Wimberly will be at Sandalwood on May 21 without quarterback Gabe Taylor but has a stable of top-notch running backs led by Austee'n Mills and Xzavier Jones.

Spring football practices open on April 27 with conditioning, then pads, then contact.