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September 5, 2013
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September 5, 2013
Terrebonne High School football coach Gary Hill has been around the prep football scene for more than two decades.
Never has the Tigers’ coach seen anything like he’s witnessed this summer: Persistent lightening, subsequent thunder and then buckets of rain – almost always starting at exactly 2:30 p.m.
“We talked about that in the coaches’ office this summer,” Hill said. “We don’t remember in the 17 years that I’ve been coaching that it’s ever been like this.”
For most of August, daily afternoon showers drenched Lafourche, Terrebonne and St. Mary parishes.
The timing of the downpours almost always started around mid-afternoon – the time most teams practice for the upcoming season. That coincidence has forced many local programs to cancel outdoor practices in favor of indoor workouts – a quick fix that has some coaches thinking that Friday’s start of the season may be glittered with sloppy football.
“I think it’s going to have an impact, yes,” Ellender football coach Terry Washington said from his office on a day the team’s practice was canceled by rain. “If you can’t practice, it’s hard to get better. There’s only so much you can do in the gym.”
The official start of the 2013 prep football season was Aug. 12 – the first day the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) allows teams to begin practicing for the year.
Using that date and then factoring in that most schools only practice from Monday-Friday, local coaches had approximately 14 practices to prepare for this past Friday’s jamborees.
But because of the rain, teams were only able to work outdoors a small fraction of the time.
From Aug. 12-26 (prime practice dates), www.weather.com said that 7.15 inches of rain fell in Houma. During that two-week stretch, rainfall was registered on 11 of the 14 days. In eight of those wet days, more than a half-inch of precipitation fell from the sky.
That compounding effect meant that even on the few days of sunshine or minimal rain, teams often were confined to the gym because of the water that was pooled on practice fields.
“We just haven’t been able to get on the field,” Covenant Christian coach Blyght Wunstell said at a recent preseason practice. “We’ve spent more time in the gym than we’d like to – that’s for sure.”
How it all affects a football team is nondiscriminatory – coaches said that every phase of the game is impacted.
Start with defense. If a team is working out indoors, the gym floor is much smaller than the actual game field – an illusion that could affect angles during an actual game.
Likewise, the gym has a hardwood floor, which doesn’t allow teams to have contact or attack at full-speed, which also affects conditioning.
In Friday’s jamborees, several teams fought cramping – a problem coaches attribute to the inability to consistently work outdoors.
“It’s just different,” Hill said. “If you’re in the gym, you can’t go all-out. We can’t hit. We can’t sprint the kids after practice. So not having that definitely affects the conditioning. It’s different being inside an air conditioned gym than when you’re out on the field giving as much energy as you possibly can with pads on in the middle of a game.”
Using that same thought process, it’s also easy to conclude that indoor work means that there is no practice on kicking, punting or kick and punt return and coverage teams.
But most coaches agree that the biggest impact is on offense – specifically the passing game.
Throwing the football is heavily predicated on timing and routine. It’s an art that is mastered after thousands of repetitions between quarterback and receiver.
When the word “thousands” of reps is actually “a few hundred” reps, the chemistry and fluidity isn’t the same and offenses struggle.
E.D. White coach Kyle Lasseigne’s team doesn’t throw the football as much as others in the area. He said this offseason he’s grateful for that because he believes quarterbacks and receivers will struggle early.
Lasseigne’s team took a weather-related blow of its own this offseason, as the soggy conditions delayed the team’s stadium renovations, which forced the Cardinals to shift Friday’s season opener to Houma.
“For us, it’s a little bit less of a problem because of the offense we run,” Lasseigne said. “But it’s been tough. I went to a couple of scrimmages last week and you could visibly see the rust in the passing game. You could just see that guys couldn’t get out in the passing game. We saw a lot of dropped balls and a lot of miscommunication.”
But with the jamboree out of the way and brighter days forecast, Hill and the rest of the area is hoping for sun this week.
If it stays dry, the Terrebonne coach said his team will be able to work out its kinks from the jamboree and get ready for Friday.
“We hope this week is good,” Hill said. “We’ll be OK if it is. If not, you’ll see a lot of repeat mistakes.”
Morgan City coach Dennis Lorio agreed. The state championship-winning coach said his team is just trying to progress through the adverse weather.
“It’s funny, we were trying to get a sprinkler system for the practice field,” Lorio said with a laugh. “It didn’t look like we needed it.”
Two Central Lafourche defenders tackle a Belle Chasse wide receiver during Friday’s jamboree. Local coaches said this week that because of rainy conditions, defenses may struggle in the early portions of the season. One of the reasons for their concern is a lack of contact that teams can have in a gym.
