Charles Henderson High School coach Brad McCoy and the rest of the Trojans hit the practice field Wednesday, kicking off their summer program in earnest and getting ready for the 2015 season.

Following an 8-4 season, McCoy and Trojans are looking forward to getting back to work.

The Trojans will practice Monday through Friday from about 9:00 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. Drills and conditioning will be key this.

“In the month of June and July we will hit the weight room as much as we possibly can,” McCoy said. “We try to hit conditioning really hard in June and then transition into more football type stuff in July.”

Per Alabama High School Athletic Association rules, teams are able to practice has many times as they want as long as they practice without pads. Charles Henderson is currently practicing in helmets only.

A point of emphasis for the Trojans this summer will be continuing the transition of replacing the seniors they lost to graduation.

“It goes back to spring practice, and not so much this summer,” McCoy said. “But, after losing Austin (Ingram) and losing people like Richard McBride, we sat back and tried to identify kids that could fill those voids. The offseason is huge for us.”

Losing Ingram immediately opens a quarterback competition this summer leading into fall practice.

Both players going out for quarterback, Bryson Gandy and Alex Bland, missed some of spring practice due to baseball.

“Bryson Gandy, who is filling in now, and Alex Bland at quarterback, are both baseball players, so they only got half the spring,” McCoy said. “This summer is going to be huge in determining each one’s strength and weakness’s. The quarterback position is probably the biggest question mark on the entire football team.”

Both quarterbacks will go through drills and fundamentals this summer to get ready for fall practice.

“You’re not going to get any live action during the summer, so that part of the game we are not going to see,” McCoy said. “Fundamentals and mechanics are what we are trying to develop in these quarterbacks. We are just trying to teach them to become better quarterbacks.”

In all the Trojans lost 18 seniors to graduation, opening up doors for players without a lot of history of playing time.

“We have 17 players coming up that haven’t played a whole lot,” McCoy said. “So we are playing with some new faces and we have a lot of new talent. Our eighth grade kids are a very talented group of kids and we hope they will contribute real early.”

Charles Henderson’s fall practice will start in August. They will start their 2015 season with a preseason matchup with Pike County on August 21.