Farragut was still trying to find its identity at the halfway point last season.

The Admirals were 0-5 at the end of September and seemingly reeling as the back-half of their schedule loomed.

Then they found themselves behind a youth movement, beginning a four-game win streak after the calendar turned to October that pushed them into the postseason and provided something to build off of in 2025.

“I think it was just the maturity and the growth of confidence of our football team last year,” second-year Farragut head coach Geoff Courtney said. “We started out the year with a lot of unknowns, a lot of questions about personnel. We had a smaller senior class.

“Once we kind of figured out where our players were, what our identity was … That kind of led to us being a pretty formidable team by the end of the year.”

Corbin Hobson had a lot to do with it.

The then-sophomore quarterback completed 137 passes for 1,925 yards and 13 touchdowns, helping spearhead the Admirals’ surge, which included wins over Bradley Central, Oak Ridge, Jefferson County and Hardin Valley.

Farragut let a lead slip away in a late-season loss to Maryville, but worked its way into a Class 6A playoff berth before a season-ending loss to Dobyns-Bennett.

“Even after our tough start, we were able to win the games that we needed to,” Courtney said. “We got a lot of things accomplished that we wanted to in year 1 as a program.”

The Admirals return a lot of pieces from that run, including Hobson. Noah Hagg, who competed for the starting quarterback job, will split time between running back and defense as a senior, while Owen Petoskey anchors the defensive line after finishing with 44 total tackles and five tackles for loss.

“The challenge is, we know what the expectation is,” Courtney said. “That may be a blessing. … The challenge is right in front of us. We’ve got guys that are coming back, but we know that every single week, we’re going to have to earn and prove it. Just because we did some things at the end of last year and finding out who we were, that’s not automatically going to transfer to the start of this year.

“We’ve got to go through that process, but I feel great about the guys we have. They’re extremely hungry. They want to go out and have a good year.”

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