SIKESTON -- The hottest days of the year are expected to have come and gone already and it's time to hit the gridiron under the Friday night lights. All is well for football fans young and old, but it costs the teams a lot to get prepared for the grueling season.
Sikeston head coach Kent Gibbs said that his team has come a long way from where they were at during his first season at the helm.
"This year the schedule is a week shorter," said Gibbs. "So, we start and then three weeks later we have our first game. So, we really don't have a lot of time to do some of the things we'd really like to do."
Gibbs said that the 50-plus members of the team were prepared to go to a collegiate camp but things didn't work out in their favor, so they were forced to rely on the experience they gained in the two camps that they held at their own facility.
"Basically our only camps we had were our contact camp in early June and our last camp which was the third week in July."
The contact camp brought in several out-of-town teams and Gibbs said that the feedback was positive from all aspects.
"It was excellent," he said. "We had our rules meeting last night (Thursday) and I talked to some of the coaches, but more importantly I talked to some of the officials that were down there and they thought it was a real good deal for the teams. The officials really liked it from the stand-point that they said they could see kids, individual kids, and/or teams that were getting better on that second day. We were real excited and we're going to do it again."
As for the July camp, Gibbs said that he took away a lot of positive from how things played out.
"We felt pretty good about how camp went," he said. "Our numbers were improved slightly. Our summer attendance was improved slightly in the weight room and also in the camps, so, you know, we feel like we've had a pretty good summer."
Official practice will begin Monday at 4 p.m. for the Bulldogs. After another four o'clock practice on Tuesday, the in-school practice schedule will begin Wednesday with drills taking place following the final bell of the day. Gibbs said that the shortened practice schedule due to the extra playoff game following the season has limited their practice schedule for the early part of the year. The schedule change eliminated the soap-game that Bulldog fans became familiar with over the years.
"We're going to have a little bit of a scrimmage Friday night," said Gibbs. "Our scrimmage which will start somewhere around seven o'clock. It's not an actual soap game but just an inter-squad scrimmage amongst each other."
"We'll come back and practice that Saturday morning, then we'll practice that next week and that next Friday is our jamboree," he added. "Then, we'll practice that Saturday and we'll take pictures and then we come back and we've got our games."
Gibbs said that the heat of the summer was a factor a few times, but that for the most part the summer has played fair to the practice routine.
"In the first camp it got a little warm and you just give kids breaks and give them all the water that they want," he said. "If they get hot you sit them down and cool them down and do those kind of things. Right now, keep our fingers crossed, Monday doesn't look like it's going to be real hot. So, maybe we'll get by without some of that stuff."
The talk amongst returning players is that the 'Red-and-Black' should be a step-up from last year's squad and that the program is heading in the right direction. When asked if things are better in his opinion, Gibbs responded, "That's a good question. I'm not sure you can ever measure that until you actually get started."
"We would like to think that we've got more kids buying into what we want done and how we want things done," he went on to say. "If you look at our weight room numbers overall, they were up. Our camp numbers were about where I thought they would be. It wasn't anything surprising, but most everybody was at camp, so, I think we're seeing a little bit of progress."
"Whether or not that translates over to, 'Are things going to be better?,' well, I think you have to wait and see how the kids perform and how they practice during the next three weeks," said Gibbs. "We don't have two-a-days this year, and that's not a major deal if the kids come in and work and do what they need to do anyway. The idea of two practices a day -- you do that when you're behind or you do it when you're starting (a new program) like we did last year. But, for the last several years, from where I came from, I haven't done two-a-days. So, we'll find out if we can handle that and our maturity level, but, I would like to think we've made some progress. If you ask me in a couple of weeks I'll be able to tell you a little bit more."
Gibbs figures on having around 50 kids throughout the grinding season and credits it to the fact that kids have now seen what he and his staff expect. He stated that they were on the same page as he was at the moment.
"Once you get your program established, they already know what's expected of them, so you don't lose them after you start, you lose them before you ever start," he said. "You can't measure a kids heart, so you have to build on that as you go. They have to want to work hard."
He said that through all the tough practice sessions and hard work he thinks the Bulldogs are heading in the right direction.
"I'm ready and I think the kids are ready," he said. "I think that most of them are excited about it. We'll see what happens."
The Bulldogs will see their first action at the East Prairie Jamboree on Aug. 22. The Jamboree will begin at 6 p.m. The first game is on the road at Fredericktown on Aug. 29 and the home opener against Charleston will be Sept. 5.