Most football coaches always say the most progress a team makes is between Games 1 and 2.
There’s a trend afoot in high school football where teams are trying to utilize that philosophy without sacrificing a real game.
Last season -- beginning with the 2014 spring -- the Georgia High School Association began allowing programs to opt out of traditional spring practice and instead add a second scrimmage game in the fall.
Several area programs -- Lumpkin County, Banks County, North Hall, Union County, Stephens County, and North Forsyth -- opted for the new approach. Despite just one year of “research” as a sample, the initial thoughts have been mostly positive.
However, coach Jason Galt at North Forsyth, after suffering through an injury-riddled 1-9 season in 2014, opted to go back to the traditional spring practice and one scrimmage, citing the lack of spring and limited summer workouts as a reason.
“I can’t say with any statistical proof that having no spring was the reason but what I noticed is that there was very little football activity from the end of the 2013 season until the start of the fall (2014) by the kids because we were limited to what we could do in the summer,” Galt said. “I think some of our injuries could be related to that because we only had about two weeks to get everyone in shape and then we had our first scrimmage. That’s when the injuries started.”
Union County coach Brian Allison had his Panthers switch to two scrimmages. He had a mixed review.
“I’m not sure if it’s better overall,” Allison said. “It worked out pretty good for this year (spring 2014) because we had a lot of our spring sports make the playoffs and we have a lot of kids that play multiple sports. We would not have had a lot of numbers in the spring. But, we will definitely evaluate whether to continue it after this season.”
But for the most part, the initial responses have been positive. Here are the thoughts of some the coaches who switched to the “new” format:
Biff Parson -- Banks County
“We decided to do it this year because we had most of our offense coming back and we needed to rebuild our defense. You’re always nervous with no spring because you are used to it. But what I have found is that by having no spring and two scrimmages it forces you to prepare and organize yourself better. We went to two padded camps in the summer and that was huge for us. We got to go against teams like Buford and you can’t simulate that in spring or regular practice. I also noticed that the kids seemed more excited about the fact that we practiced for about a week and a half and then had our first scrimmage (a 38-33 loss to Hart County), another week of practice, and then we’ll have another scrimmage. Instead of dreading practicing and hitting each other for three weeks we got to see different things in live play. So far, I like it. But, it’s going to take a good 3 to 5 years to really get a good evaluation of the new way.”
Frank Bearden -- Stephens County
“As of the early going with this, I would say it’s better. The main reason is that we didn’t start school until (Aug. 14th) so we could go two-a-days and then we had our first scrimmage. But I may have a different opinion depending on how our two scrimmages go overall.”
David Bishop -- North Hall
“Back in the day you could have spring and two scrimmages so not much has really changed. The GHSA cut that to one scrimmage a few years ago so that was an adjustment. Through the years we’ve had a lot of guys do spring sports so we would miss out on having them at the spring session. Whatever you decided to do you were supposed to commit for two years. I know some programs were released from that after last year. We did (no spring) last year and I liked having the two scrimmages and having two weeks of being able to evaluate the players on game-conditions right before the season. I always felt that having just one scrimmage was not enough. But one year is not enough to evaluate the system as a whole. I’ll let you know more after this season is done.”
Ty Maxwell -- Lumpkin County
“The pluses are that we would not have had some of our kids during the spring and I think that has made our practices now better and provided more competition and given them something to work for. What we did in the spring was work on our speed and agility during that time. It also helped us stay healthy in that no one got hurt in spring practice. As to whether we will keep doing this, I’ll have to look at it after the season. But I have not seen a drawback from it so far.”
