Packers acclimating, preparing for Lee County

Jul. 28—MOULTRIE — According to the Georgia High School Association, the date for the first practice for the 2021 football season was last Monday.

And while it was, it really, sort of, wasn't.

The five days of football workouts this week have become know as acclimation, a week for players to get used to working out in South Georgia's hot and humid July and August.

Practices this week are limited to two hours and players can wear no other protective equipment other than helmets and mouthpieces.

This week's sessions are similar to those the team held during the summer except that starting Monday, they are mandatory.

Teams won't be able to don full pads until Monday, Aug. 2.

And that really hinders teams like Colquitt County, which is trying to get ready to play a preseason scrimmage on Friday, August 6.

The Packers essentially will have just four days to prepare for meeting Lee County at 7:30 that night on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium.

Packers coach Justin Rogers knew he had a small window for full practices to get to meet the reigning Class 6A runners-up.

But he wanted to play two weeks before the August 20 opener at Marietta to give his team time to heal before traveling to play the Blue Devils.

He said the Packers will hold workouts this week in the afternoon, just as they will when school starts.

And Rogers and his staff will begin some preliminary work on getting ready for the Trojans.

And while it was a deliberate decision to play Lee with only five days of padded practices, it is not the same as having a preseason football camp.

And so, the Packers are in a hurry-up-and-wait mode this week.

"Technically, practices have started," Rogers said. "But, really, they haven't started.

"It's frustrating."

Rogers said next week the Packers will try to find the delicate balance between having a football camp atmosphere with making sure the players have enough physically to play on Friday night.

"You have to make sure they are not so worn out they can't be successful against Lee County," he said.

The acclimation week follows what Rogers believes has been a busy, but productive summer of padded camps and 7-on-7 competitions.

"We were able to make them think, made them feel uncomfortable and put them in some pressure situations," Rogers said.

"From the Troy 7-on-7 to the padded camps we had with Thomas County Central, we saw a lot of improvement."

But, he cautioned, what the Packers did over the summer "is not football."

That will start with next week's practices and the scrimmage against one of the top programs in the state.

Rogers and his staff are eager to see how a largely inexperienced team will respond when it goes up against a Lee County team that lost the Class 6A state championship game to Buford in overtime last year and won state championships back to back in 2017 and 2018.

"Lee County is one of the best programs in the state," Rogers said. "They are unbelievably talented.

"We won't face a team better than Lee County this season. There will be some teams on our schedule that will be as talented as Lee County, but none with better talent and coaching."

Lee County has never defeated Colquitt County, going 0-10 against the Packers dating back to 1988.

The last two times Colquitt County and Lee County squared off were in the 2014 and 2015 seasons.

Colquitt won those games 58-14 and 54-17 respectively.

And while those results could give the Trojans an additional reason to want to play well when it comes to Moultrie, Rogers said any team the Packers would face would have a similar incentive.

"Who wouldn't want to beat Colquitt County," he said. "That would be a feather in anybody's cap.

"We will always get anyone's best game. Beating Colquitt County is a signature win for any program, even one the calibre of Lee County."

But there is an upside for the Packers to play a team such as the one coming down from Leesburg.

"We'll leave that game with some answers," Rogers said. "We might not like all the answers we get."

That is another reason Rogers wanted to face Lee County two weeks before facing a much-improved Marietta program.

He and his staff will have the opportunity to know more about their team before heading to Cobb County.

Both teams will use the scrimmage as an opportunity to evaluate their players and will not invest much in the way of game plan preparation.

The scrimmage will feature three quarters of varsity play and quarterbacks will not be "live." Special teams will be live, however.

Reserved tickets for the scrimmage against Lee County are on sale for $10 at the high school athletic office until noon on August 6. Reserved seat tickets not purchased by noon on Aug. 6 will go on sale to the general public at the gate for $12.

General admission tickets purchased at the athletic office by noon on Aug. 6 will be $8.

General admission tickets purchased at the gate will be $10.

Also, there will be no Booster Club parking for the Aug. 6 scrimmage.

Booster Club parking will begin when the Packers play their home opener against Westlake on Friday, August 27.