Helmets on
High school football felt more normal starting Monday.
Monday marked the first day in 2020 that high school football teams could wear helmets.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Friday gave approval for the Arkansas Activities Association to go forward with the 2020-21 sports calendar, which includes football teams practicing with helmets only Monday and today. They can begin wearing shoulder pads Wednesday.
With the coronavirus pandemic putting a halt to spring football, 7-on-7 tournaments and team camps, football teams could hold only virtual workouts from the middle of March to late May. On June 1, teams could resume in-person workouts, but they were limited to mostly conditioning workouts and weight room sessions.
North Little Rock held its first practice with helmets Monday, and senior quarterback Kareame Cotton was excited.
“We’ve been working hard,” Cotton said. “We’re glad that the governor gave us the go. I’m ready to attack it.”
The Charging Wildcats — who have played in the past four Class 7A state championship games, winning a title in 2017 — are under new leadership this year.
J.R. Eldridge was hired in March after Jamie Mitchell resigned to take a head coaching position in Alabama. He spent nine seasons at Arkadelphia and is now coaching in the state’s largest classification.
Eldridge, a two-time state champion coach at Arkadelphia (2017, 2018), was glad to hold a “normal” football workout for the first time this year. But he still had social-distancing guidelines in place per state guidelines.
“We’re trying to make sure we’re doing the right things with these guys,” Eldridge said. “We want to make sure they’re wearing masks and stay distanced inside. When we come out here, we want to do the best we can so we can stay healthy.”
North Little Rock spent an hour issuing helmets, then practiced for two hours.
The Charging Wildcats went through offensive, defensive and special-teams drills. For the first time this year, teams were allowed to have handoffs between the quarterbacks and running backs.
“We’ve been asking them to bring energy, effort and focus every day. I felt like they did that,” Eldridge said. “Obviously, the first day, we’re going to have some things that we’ll have to clean up on film.
“I tell you what, I’m just
glad that we’re out here and have the opportunity to put some helmets on and progress toward the season. It’s been tough with the unknown, not knowing what we’re going to do. Now, being back able to get back out here, that was a huge step for us.”
Eldridge said he did not have the Charging Wildcats watch film in June and July because he wanted to limit the in-person contact indoors. Instead, he sent his players virtual workouts via Hudl. He plans to continue using Hudl for safety reasons.
Arkansas is one of 27 states that is scheduled to start its high school football season on time. Eldridge wasn’t sure whether teams across the state would resume as normal with the AAA calendar. Hutchinson’s announcement Friday was a relief.
“It was really tough with the uncertainty,” he said. “You’ve got to plan for so many different things. Either you’re planning for training camp or you’ll keep going with the same restrictions. It was tough. We were scrambling
a little bit.”
North Little Rock has a benefit game Aug. 28 at El Dorado, then is scheduled to open the season Sept. 4 at Springdale Har-Ber. Eldridge said the Charging Wildcats will be prepared despite the shorter time period to adjust to wearing pads.
“We missed spring football. We missed team camps,” Eldridge said. “We weren’t able to get live reps against anybody else. You love to be able to say that reps against yourself are the same, but they’re just not. I feel like us being able to have this time prepare is good for us. At the same time, we’ll look forward to scrimmaging somebody else, too.”
It’s not certain whether Arkansas high school football teams will get to play their seasons this fall, but Cotton is hopeful he will get a change to lead North Little Rock back to the title game.
“It would mean everything to me if we get to play,” Cotton said. “We don’t have much time to prepare. But we are going to face adversity and move forward with it.”