Is 2 weeks enough? South Jersey high school football coaches discuss shortened preseason
The thought hit Brian Leary like a 240-pound linebacker.
“My God,” the Highland Regional High School football head coach exclaimed. “We got 14 days until we play. It’s insane.”
The Tartans had just started official practices for the fall season and the reality of what needed to be accomplished was setting in.
Highland, like every other program in the state, got back to work on Aug. 10 with heat acclimatization. Squads were required to complete five days before putting on pads. With a day off mixed in, most teams went full bore on Aug. 16.
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Scrimmages were permitted Aug. 17, meaning many schools only got one day of true preparation before butting heads with an opponent.
Why the rush to play the first day available? Because Highland, like 36 other teams in the West Jersey Football League, have a Week 0 contest. There were only 10 days between the start of full pads and kickoff.
“The 17th, at 8 a.m., I’m getting on a bus and going to St. Augustine, having a combined practice with them and then we’re ending the day with 11-on-11 stuff. We’ll be competing against them,” Leary said. “I’m asking my kids to go scrimmage after one day in full, the following day practice, the following day have a tri-scrimmage with Penns Grove and West Deptford on the 19th, then the following Friday opening with Downingtown West (Pa.) in Ocean City.”
Leary and many other South Jersey coaches weren’t fans of the condensed preseason schedule.
Teams with Week 0 games could start practicing a week earlier in previous seasons. Everyone had the same start date this summer, which put a lot of pressure on those teams that are set to play real games this weekend.
“Honestly, I’m very surprised that we weren’t able to start a week earlier,” said Egg Harbor Township coach Kevin Stetser, whose Eagles take on Mainland at the Battle at the Beach in Ocean City at 10 a.m. on Friday in the first game of the new season. “… We have to manage how kids can play. It’s a really, really shortened preparation time, the time for the kids to get acclimated. You got to hit before the season. It took away a week where it made it tough, made it very, very difficult and it discourages you from playing that first week.”
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So why are the Eagles playing in Week 0? The same reason as the Tartans.
“We felt it was an experience our kids would really enjoy being a part of,” Leary said of the Ocean City event. “We don’t get that opportunity during the year to go play a team out of state at a huge event like that, a lot of media, a lot of people. I think it’s beneficial to our kids as an experience. Does it help our team? I don’t know, but it’s an experience our kids will remember and I want to give them that.”
Ocean City is the host team for the event, which is why the Raiders are competing, but head coach Kevin Smith isn’t thrilled about playing Week 0.
“There’s so much emphasis on safety in the game, but by not giving kids adequate time to prepare for real games, you’re making things less safe,” he said.
Smith and other coaches throughout the region have tried their best to stay in front of the shortened schedule by adjusting their summer preparation.
Long ago, the summer months were about conditioning and weight training. Now, many coaches are installing their systems so they don’t have to waste time teaching in August.
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“Most of the practice is situations, situations, situations,” Shawnee head coach Tim Gushue said. “We’re practicing more game-like scenarios. I tell my coaches, you can’t be doing a bunch of summer camp drills. You can’t be backpedaling for 15 minutes. You need to incorporate that into a game-like setting, make a reaction and then finish someway shape or form.”
Shawnee travels to Northern Burlington on Friday for its first game. Gushue lined it up so he could maximize his kids’ season.
“We wanted to guarantee our kids nine games, plus that would’ve been the bye week,” he said. “Some guys are really adamant, I want three weeks for preseason. I’m a little nervous, but I will say we did a lot of work this summer and we have a lot of kids back. I’ll be honest, if I had to play a game tomorrow (during the first week of practice), I think we could.”
Salem head coach Montrey Wright felt similarly as the Rams returned a loaded roster from last year’s South/Central Region 1 championship squad.
Another pro for Wright was getting his team into top form earlier.
“With Week 0, we play a game, we kind of figure out our team and make adjustments,” he said. “After those games Week 0 and Week 1, you go back to the drawing board and figure out what you need to do to make sure your team is playing at that high level. It worked out well for us the last couple years, but again, the con is you got to move at a fast pace. You got to condition your guys during practice, during drills to make sure they’re playing at a high level. That’s the thing, you’re racing against time. You got to make sure you’re doing it. Week 0 has taught us a lot about our teams at an early stage.”
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West Deptford played Week 0 each of the past four seasons, but head coach Jason Morrell was a hard no for the earlier game this year.
“It was not advantageous for us,” he said. “You’re limiting yourself with scrimmages. … It forces you to do more in the summer, and we do a lot in the summer. We do five days a week in the summer. I’d have 10 practices before our first game (Week 0) and playing a pretty good opponent. I’d need to crank up the summer routine even more, put helmets and shoulder pads on. That’s dicey.”
Haddonfield head coach Frank DeLano felt similarly, and wondered if the schedule changes are in the best interests of the kids.
“We presented our staff a checklist today (Aug. 9), the checklist goes into prepping for Game 1,” he said. “There’s like 41 items on offense, 41 items on D and an additional 40 in the kicking game. I don’t know how to do it (if Haddonfield had a Week 0 game). … I’d much rather take the time to teach, make kids safe, get scrimmages spaced out accordingly, not put two in six days or four days and act like we’re ready. We want to make sure we’re doing everything by the books.”
He added, “We have a parent meeting, I’m going to stare at 65 families or 70 families, whatever’s there, and we’re going to tell them we’re going to protect and love their kid, that’s in every phase we do. We’re not going to compromise that.
“If the state had a different start time, teams open up Week 0 can open up a week sooner, that’s a different story.”
Josh Friedman has produced award-winning South Jersey sports coverage for the Courier Post, The Daily Journal and the Burlington County Times for more than a decade. If you have or know of an interesting story to tell, reach out on Twitter at @JFriedman57 or via email at jfriedman2@gannettnj.com. You can also contact him at 856-486-2431. Help support local journalism with a subscription.
This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: South Jersey high school football coaches talk shortened preseason
