Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Panthers turn up intensity
Team held its first fall football practice Monday
SILOAM SPRINGS — The Siloam Springs football team held its first fall practice Monday, and there was a noticeable difference in the atmosphere at Panther Stadium, according to the Panthers themselves.
Players were wearing helmets for the first time since the start of the covid-19 pandemic. Drills had an extra element of intensity. Coaches were barking instructions, and the practice’s tempo was more upbeat than that of the summer workouts of the last two months.
“You could tell everybody’s a lot more enthusiastic,” said senior wide receiver Gavin Henson. “Just everybody was a lot more fired up. Everybody was here on time. Everybody was ready to go. It was kind of cool to see some guys who hadn’t been here very much during the summer, finally showed up and started working hard.”
The Panthers, along with teams across the state, learned last Friday that they could wear helmets at practice on Monday after an announcement from Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Hutchinson and the Arkansas Activities Association hinted that they want the 2020 football season to go on as scheduled.
Junior offensive/defensive lineman J.P. Wills was at work Friday afternoon when he got a text from his mom with the good news. He said he was excited.
“I was so glad we could play football,” Wills said. “Definitely, this is the hope that we needed for sure.”
“It just kinda marked football’s here. We’re getting ready for season. We’re getting ready to go hit some people in the mouth.”
Even though the Panthers have had workouts all summer, coach Brandon Craig said the team has to kick it up a notch during fall practice to get ready for the season, which is scheduled to begin Aug. 28 at home against Rogers.
“We got our information from the governor to get started, so we’re getting out of summer mode and back into season mode, which means the focus, the discipline and intensity has got to go up more,” Craig said. “We try to build a lot of relationships during the summer and have some fun. Well now it’s time to get back to focusing on the season. We missed out on spring ball. We missed out on pad camps. We missed out on 7 on 7s, so we looked pretty rough. We’ve got a long ways to go. We’re going to have to get there in a real fast time period.”
The Panthers are scheduled to transition to wearing shoulder pads for practice beginning Wednesday.
Getting in pads will help the defensive players significantly, Craig said.
“It’s hard to go through the motions without pads on defensively,” Craig said. “Offensively we were a little more crisp because a lot of that stuff we can do on air or versus shields and not have too much of a problem.”
The Panthers are transitioning back to what a normal football practice might look like, however, social distancing and face masks are still used away from practice. The coaches monitor and limit locker room usage and disinfect after each use.
“There’s a whole list of things we’re doing to try and make sure we keep our kids safe and still follow as close to practice procedures as we can,” Craig said.
The players are trying to do their part, Henson said.
“You can tell everybody’s putting in a pretty conscious effort,” Henson said. “Everybody stays sanitized. Everybody keeps their mask on. Everybody wants to get pads on because we know once we get pads on that’s a really big step toward us getting to have a season, because it’s coming up soon. If we can get to that point and hold it a little bit it gives us a really good shot at it.”
“It just kinda marked football’s here. We’re getting ready for season. We’re getting ready to go hit some people in the mouth.” — Junior offensive/ defensive lineman J.P. Wills