High school football teams began playing their final tune-up on Thursday and many others will play tonight.
The second scrimmage - Week 0 - has always been a conundrum for high school coaches. Do you play hard to stay sharp for the season opener? Do you rest players to keep them healthy for Week 1? How much do you show opposing coaches?
Teams try to find a happy medium, said Stebbins coach Greg Bonifay. The Indians hosted Tecumseh on Thursday night at Edmundson Stadium.
The most important thing, he said, is getting the players into live game situations.
“I enjoy it for the simple fact that it’s a game situation where that first scrimmage is 10 plays and 10 plays, that type of stuff,” Bonifay said. “This gives even our young kids a way to understand what we expect on the sidelines, on the field, all that stuff.”
Football programs are also doing everything they can to stay healthy in Week 0, especially after surviving two weeks of practice without injury. At the same time, you want your kids to be prepared for Week 1, he said.
“If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,” Bonifay said. “At the end, before the end of the third quarter, we had our ones out and let the young guys play just because I had seen what I wanted to see.”
The final scrimmage isn’t about just the game, but the week leading up to it. Most teams try to get into a routine in their final tune-up, including putting together a scouting report and following a practice schedule similar to what they’ll do in Week 1. They also don’t want to show their Week 1 opponent too much on film.
“We want to see certain things in this scrimmage,” Bonifay said. “I want our kids sometimes to be put in bad positions to see how they react. Defensively, (against Tecumseh) we stayed in our base the whole time where, against an offense like that, we would have changed things up.”
The Indians will travel to Carroll - their Riverside neighbor - next Friday night.
“The kids are really excited about it,” Bonifay said. “There’s gonna be a traveling trophy that’s been made, so we’re excited.”
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