Avoyelles Parish high school football season begins Oct. 2

The COVID-shortened football season will begin Oct. 2 for Avoyelles Parish's three football-playing high schools.

LHSAA Executive Director Eddie Bonine announced last week that full-contact drills could begin Thursday (Sept. 10) and the season would start a week earlier than previously expected, on Oct. 1-3 instead of Oct. 8-10.

There will still be an eight-game season, beginning with a team's Week 3 opponent. The schedule will just move up a week.

This was done to keep a 32-team playoff bracket instead of reducing the playoffs to 16 teams, Marksville Coach J.T. Dunbar explained.

While fans of Avoyelles and Marksville would have loved to see the two in-parish rivals clash as scheduled on Oct. 2, instead Marksville will face Week 3 opponent Pineville and the Mustangs will play St. Edmund High a week earlier than scheduled.

Bunkie will open its season against Mamou on Oct. 2.

The teams will be allowed a "pre-season scrimmage"next week. As of this writing, Marksville had tentatively scheduled to go to Oakdale on Sept. 25, Avoyelles had scheduled to go to Catholic-New Iberia on Sept. 24 and Bunkie had tentatively scheduled to travel to Sacred Heart-Ville Platte on Sept. 25.

There had been talk of organizing a Jamboree event between the three parish schools, but Avoyelles Coach Andy Boone said the Mustangs would not be able to participate since they have committed to Catholic-New Iberia.

Panthers Coach Nick Pujol said he and Dunbar discussed a "Catskin scrimmage" if Oakdale was unable to play due to the impact from Hurricane Laura.

That prospect disappered earlier this week when Oakdale said it would be able to host the scrimmage with Marksville.

"We owe them a trip, so we will be going to Oakdale next Friday (Sept. 25)," Dunbar said.