High school football is a fluid situation
Governor Asa Hutchinson announced this week the start date of public schools in the fall will be pushed back to the week of August 24.
The governor said that the start date will be no later than August 26.
“This will give the school districts more time in order to make the adjustments necessary, to make sure the campus is ready, to make sure the teachers are prepared for the blended learning environment that we will be able to go through this year,” Hutchinson said.
Earlier in the week, the Arkansas Activities Association released a statement that said it is preparing to resume activities this Fall in accordance with the regular AAA calendar.
When it comes to the high school sports schedule, it seems the Fall season could be a fluid situation, changing from week-to-week, perhaps even day-to-day.
“We don't know if the response to that would be to bump us back a week or two for football,” said El Dorado football coach Steven Jones. “We just continue to try to come in everyday and work as hard as we can in the amount of time that we get, try to get better. Whenever they tell us we can get back out there on Friday night, we'll be ready to go.”
High school football teams returned to practice this week. But they're still limited by COVID-19 restrictions, including social distancing restraints.
As far as preparation for the upcoming season, coaches normally circle the opening day on the calendar as a target date. With no date to circle in ink, does that hinder how coaches get their teams ready?
“Yeah, it does,” said Jones. “You have your practices geared toward that first game. The way we're doing it right now is, I guess our trial run would be our Purple-White Game in mid-August. We're treating that as our first game and trying to get ready to go and scrimmage each other.
“Now, if you end up bumping the season back, yeah, you have to go back and stretch out some other practices there in the middle of it. You're kind of week-to-week as far as what you can do. There's a lot of adjustments we have to make.
But our coaches are doing a good job of adjusting on the fly when we need to and changing the workout to what we want to accomplish that week. But to answer your question, yeah, it can really alter the way you prepare because you have everything kind of geared to that first game.”
Jones said El Dorado's PurpleWhite Game, as of Friday, was still scheduled for August 14. As for the recent practices, all things considered, the coach said the Wildcats have done surprisingly well.
“I think our kids, overall, have come out and worked really hard. I was impressed with our entire team and the effort they're giving,” he said. “It's not easy to come to a workout and know it's not normal. You're not going to get to do the team scenario. It's a challenge to continue to motivate those guys. But the kids are doing a good job of motivating themselves throughout practice. They've kept good energy. Everybody's upbeat. Everybody's excited to play football this season. I've been impressed with the energy at practice and the kids have shown they really want to be out there.”