Each season, the countdown to the high school football season is the same.
After summer workouts comes the first official day of practice followed by the first day practice is allowed in pads.
The next step comes this week with scrimmages. Coaches get a chance to see and evaluate their teams in game-type situations.
The video helps them evaluate how the veterans and newcomers are coming together.
Players get to finally get to go head-to-head against someone besides their teammates.
Scrimmages vary in format. But they usually consist of two or three series of plays involving the varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams. These can be a set number or timed.
That’s the “controlled” part of the scrimmage where coaches can be the field and even in the huddles.
Some scrimmages also include work on goalline offenses and defenses.
The scrimmages sometimes end with a 12-minute regulation quarter.
All four parish teams are having scrimmages. Three are at home and one is on the road.
Two are set for Thursday. Minden vists Haughton at 6 p.m. and Glenbrook hosts Lakeview and Green Oaks at 6.
Two are Friday. Lakeside hosts Cedar Creek at 6 and North Webster hosts Magnolia, Ark., at 5:30.
Minden, which has 14 starters returning off last year’s 8-3 team, will be taking on a Haughton program coming off a couple of down years.
The Bucs went 3-7 last season. But Taylor Westhersby, who passed for 2,388 yards last season and Brandon Craig, a second-team All-District 1-5A selection, are back.
New Glenbrook Head Coach Greg Tibbitt’s Apaches are facing teams that struggled last season. Green Oaks went 2-8 and Lakeview 0-10.
Tibbitt and his staff will get a chance to see his squad in a game-type situation for the first time. His first day as head coach was June 1.
The Apaches, who went 6-4 last season, have a new quarterback in junior Ryan Reagan.
Lakeside’s opponent Cedar Creek is another team looking for improvement. The Cougars went 1-9 last year.
Lakeside Head Coach John Ware lost 10 seniors off last season’s 9-3 team. But the Warriors have veterans at quarterback and running back in Brock Case and 1,000-yard rusher Kentravion Miller.
North Webster Head Coach Christopher Wilson will get a chance to evaluate his new offense, which has only one returning starter, lineman Hudson Smith.
The Knights are taking on a Magnolia team that went 5-5 last season.