Worth County football coach identifies 4-year QB starter as ‘strongest spot’

Today’s Four Questions interviewee is Worth County coach Jeff Hammond, whose team is the defending Class A Division I champion. Hammond led Worth County to its first region championship since 1989 in 2024. The state championship last season was the program’s first since 1987.

1. What was the legacy of Worth County’s 2025 championship team?

“They had tremendous work ethic. They did a lot of special things, and we won a bunch of ball games last year, but my favorite thing about that group was we had two subpar practices all year. That was my first group that I inherited when I got here, and how they prepared and how they worked and how they competed has kind of set the standard moving forward.”

2. What are the strongest areas of this team, and what areas need the most work?

“Probably our strongest spot is going to be definitely at the quarterback position. (Quarterback Lyndon Worthy is) going on being a four-year starter, and he’s had a tremendous career. The offensive line, we return the majority of our players that played 15 games last year, so I feel confident that my signal caller and my offensive line is going to be solid. We lost a bunch of skill kids on both sides of the ball. We return a few. Jaquaveon Nelson at receiver would be one. Daylon Smith at linebacker and Malik Muhammad on defense are the returners, but we have guys that are going to be capable, but the experience might not be what we ended the year with last year.”

3. When you took over at Worth County, they hadn’t had a winning season in six years. When did you see that culture start to change?

“I thought we overachieved Year 1. We won eight ball games and doubled the wins for the last season, made the playoffs and the kids really bought in that we could play with some of these teams. But on the flip side, the strength level and the weight room wasn’t where it needed to be, and it took us several years to get to where we could compete with really good football teams until two years ago. Us coming back against Thomasville (in a 28-27 upset) in the last minute of the game. I think that really put them over the edge as, ‘We’re pretty good, too. We can win every game we line up in.’ And from that one game where we had a walk-off field goal to win it, every game we went in, we felt like we could win or should win.”

4. Worth County’s first two region titles since 1989 came in the last two seasons. What kind of statement has your program made to the rest of South Georgia with those championships?