The weather was friendly during the first official week of high school football practice. Temperatures were cooler, allowing for an unusually comfortable afternoon get-together on the gridiron.
El Dorado football coach Steven Jones expects a much meaner heat miser to return soon, however.
“It looks like we’re going to get some extreme heat this week,” he said. “So our practices are going to have to change a little bit with the new AAA heat guidelines. It’s going to be an uphill battle to schedule practices and get our guys out on the field when we can.”
The Wildcats had planned to practice Monday at 1 p.m. Jones said Monday’s practice has been changed to 8 a.m. Evening practices could be pushed back later, also.
As far as the opening week, Jones thought it was productive.
“I thought we had an efficient week. We had two days in helmets to begin fall camp. So we were able to do a lot of teaching but also get a lot of reps,” he said. “Wednesday and Thursday we put on shoulder pads and shells. We were limited to tackling blocking dummies and sleds. We were able to make a little contact and move around some on Wednesday and Thursday but it was sleds and dummies only for the first week.
“We worked a lot on special teams this first week. We’re still trying to identify who our specialists are. As far as the units, our kickoff teams, our field goal unit and punt team, all those units got reps this week. We feel good about that. As far as install goes, we’re just trying to identify who the best option is at kicker. That’s place kicking on kickoffs, kicking field goals and also punting. That job is wide open.”
Teams will be allowed to have full-contact practices beginning on Monday.
“We would like to have a couple pretty involved scrimmage days before we get to our Purple-White Game, which will be August 20,” Jones said. “I think we’ll have at least three scrimmage days between now and then. We haven’t set those, yet. I’m thinking maybe Tuesday and Friday of this week but we’re still finalizing that.”
Once full contact begins, El Dorado’s coaches should have a better view of who could contribute on Friday nights, especially up front on the offensive and defensive lines.
“Obviously, when we start contact the first focus is going to be blocking and tackling. That will carry over to those special teams units - a lot of individual teaching blocking and tackling - just trying to identify guys who can run, make plays and tackle,” said Jones. “We’re still trying to build depth on both sides of the ball up front. When we put the pads on, we’ll have a better idea of who can move bodies on the offensive line and block and who can get off of a block and make a tackle on the defensive line. We’ll be able to tell better about who’s going to be able to be a ball player for us once we put the pads on and we have some contact.”
“We’ll probably have our first full-contact practice on Tuesday with some scrimmage periods in there. We’ll back off a little bit Wednesday, just go in helmets and then, hopefully, either Thursday or Friday have another scripted scrimmage day so we can get an extra look at those guys up front.”
As for what time each practice begins, Jones reiterated, that could depend on the weather forecast.
“We’re day-by-day right now with our schedule because of the weather. I expect to have a great week, we’ll just have to bump some times,” he said.
“This past week was a good week, especially early in the week. We had that great weather. Our practices in shells Wednesday and Thursday were smooth. Our tempo wasn’t as good but that was to be expected first day with the shoulder pads on. I think that’ll pick up this week.”