Local football teams have hope for at least a short season

There will apparently be a football season this Fall, unless COVID sticks around even longer than expected and keeps the state mired in Phase 2 of the recovery plan.

The LHSAA said last week that football season could begin as early as Oct. 8. That is a Thursday. The three football schools in Avoyelles Parish will play their first game of the 2020 season on Oct. 9. The teams will follow their previously set schedules, beginning with Week 3.

"Unfortunately, that means no Jamboree, Bunkie game or Avoyelles game for us," Marksville Tigers Coach J.T. Dunbar said. "We had Bunkie in the first week and Avoyelles in the second."

Projections are that Louisiana will at least be in Phase 3 of Gov. John Bel Edwards' "Roadmap to Resilience" plan -- hopefully by Aug. 29. If for some reason Phase 2 lasts longer than that, "We will start with Week 4," Dunbar said.

"At least they're talking about a football season now," Avoyelles Mustangs Coach Andy Boone said. "Anything is better than nothing. I just hope they aren't stringing us along.

"It will be bad if we don't play this year," Boone continued. "Sports is important to these guys. It keeps them out of trouble and it keeps them in school. It keeps them focused. It's about more than just playing a game."

Bunkie Panthers Coach Nick Pujol said he and his team "are grateful for this opportunity to have a season. That being said, not having the Catskin game (against Marksville), which was to be a home game, will hurt us financially. It would probably have been a big gate for us."

Pujol said an 8-game season would be good. Although he personally has misgivings that the season will be able to start by Oct. 8, he hopes it does.

"Whatever happens, we are ready to go full speed ahead," Pujol said.

"Postponing the start of the season will help our young players get better prepared with more individual training. Once the season starts, the focus shifts to the older players."

'AMBITIOUS' PLAN

Earlier this month, LHSAA Executive Director Eddie Bonine unveiled what he called an "ambitious" plan to save the high school football season and avoid what happened to the Spring sports this past school year.

“It’s ambitious. I’ll use the term ambitious, yeah," Bonine said. "But you know what, if you’re not ambitious you don’t get anything done. We want to play football. I want kids to play football. Parents want kids to play football yesterday. But we’ve got to do this safely.”

The alternative to the "ambitious" plan is "Nothing. No sports. We’ve already been down that ugly road in the Spring and we are going to do everything we can to prevent that from happening again.”

The news from LHSAA helped blow away a black cloud that was hanging over the season since the 2019-20 school year was cut short by campuses being shut down to suppress the spread of the potentially fatal COVID-19.

The first directive was that games could not be played until the state was in Phase 4. That was revised in late July to allow teams to practice in pads and helmets this month, with games possibly to be allowed in Phase 3.

BREATH OF HOPE

Even with this breath of hope, a season is not a certainty.

The first obstacle is that it is based on the state moving into Phase 3 by the end of August. Next, there must be 10-14 days of decline in positive COVID case numbers. The LHSAA will then ask the state for permission to allow contact drills at practice.

If the season gets to that point, there will be three weeks of practice with full contact to prepare athletes' bodies for the collisions they will experience in a game.

Bonine said schools would be able to schedule a scrimmage or jamboree on Oct. 1, 2 or 3 and have their abbreviated season opener a week later.

Even though the plan depends on how the state's COVID-19 numbers are progressing, Bonine said LHSAA is committed to getting school sports up and running.

He said it is important to get students back in class, or in virtual instructional programs, but it is also important "to have athletics back -- and that’s what we’re trying to accomplish -- but it’s going to take some time to do it.”

If the season goes ahead as planned, the playoffs would be held in the Superdome in December. Bonine also held out the possibility of having to hold the playoffs at a college stadium in January if there were schedule conflicts with the Dome.

While all three coaches would have preferred the 10-game schedule they played last year, if the season at least covers the district games it won't be a total loss.

Since Bunkie and Avoyelles are both in District 3-AA, their in-parish rivalry will continue this year.

"I told J.T. (Dunbar) that my team is obviously the better team this year, so we'll just say we beat them," Boone joked.