Parkers Chapel enjoys best day of practice
An adjustment turned out to be the tonic needed for Parkers Chapel, as the third day of practice on Wednesday morning turned out to be the best thus far this week for the Trojans.
"Today was by far the best day we've had all week," said Parkers Chapel coach Jacob Midyett. "We did some offensive individual, defensive individual, some offensive and defensive team and special teams.
"We kind of restructured how we did practice, and we found that splitting offense from the start wasn't doing us any good. We had enough kids to do it, but not enough kids to do it and get something from it, so we worked offense for the half of practice, defense in the second and special teams in the middle and got so much work today than we have in the first two days combined."
Having to adjust to the smaller numbers at Parkers Chapel became a necessity for Midyett, who got his coaching start at South Lafourche High School, a 4A school in Louisiana.
"Coming from a bigger school, that was the way we started practice, but we had more numbers down there," Midyett said. "We had 60, 70 kids, and we were able to do it that way, and that's what I was used to, but then seeing the first few days of practice, we knew we had to make an adjustment.
"We still want to work offense every day, we still want to work defense every day, we still want to work special teams every day, so we found a way that we can do that and still get a little individual work. It will change throughout the week. Monday and
Tuesday won't look like Wednesday and Thursday, but for the most part, we found out how we're going to do it."
The Trojans have been starting practices at 6 a.m., but Midyett said the team has had good energy despite the early start.
"We've gone early pretty much all summer," Midyett said. "We've had two days a week where we've run through plays, but we've started at six all summer, and that's why we've stayed early. My goal was to beat the heat, but there hasn't been much heat this week.
"Next week, we're going to start acclimating them to the afternoon, but it hasn't been bad. It's been good. We've had pretty good attendance for the most part. Today was probably the worst, but it wasn't too far off.
"The energy has been good. We got better today, and it wasn't for a lack of effort not getting better the first day, it was more how I had practice structured and me growing as a firstyear head coach and getting it fixed and having a much better day."
As far as Thursday's practice is concerned, Midyett said the Trojans will work in shells while focusing on offense and defense.
"They were excited today," Midyett said. "There was a lot of hooping and hollering. They seem to be ready to go. We're going to do some different individual drills and do a little inside period offensively and defensively and try to get a little 7-on-7 for both sides.
"We've installed punt and punt return the past three days, and we'll probably run through a little bit of both to make sure we get it polished off and get people in the right spot and wrap it up with some team on offense and defense."
Before the first week of practice concludes, Midyett said he wants to get his offense installed.
"We're trying to make sure we get everything in the run game and pass game installed," Midyett said. "We're not really worried about our screens yet, we're trying to make sure we get our base offense put in, and we're very close to having that done. Defensively, with coach (Hunter) Vincent staying on as defensive coordinator, we really didn't have to step back, so we're really just reviewing everything and trying to make sure we have our base installed and ready to go for next week."