It’s common for sports fans to claim certain events should be national holidays.
The Monday after the Super Bowl. The first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Major League Baseball Opening Day. For Murphy football head coach Joseph Watson, add the first day of high school football practice to the list.
“It’s like a national holiday,” Watson said. “Everybody’s really excited to get going and see what we got.”
Fall sports teams were able to start officially practicing on July 31. After two months of offseason workouts and 7-on-7 scrimmages, the energy is different once things become official.
The Friday night dates are set in stone. For Andrews, that means scrimmaging at Franklin on Friday before opening the season against Rosman the following week.
Murphy’s scrimmage against Copper Basin, Tenn., was canceled, but the Bulldogs are traveling to North Buncombe to face them and Tuscola in a scrimmage Friday, then travel to Franklin the following week.
“The energy level tends to go up,” Wildcats head coach James Phillips said about the first days of practice.
“(As does) the sense of urgency amongst the kids and probably us, too, as coaches. The scrimmage dates and week one games, those things are finite, they’re not moving. Everybody knows there are things we gotta get better at and we gotta get better at in a hurry.”
Both teams graduated a lot of seniors from last year, but still have a few key places to build around. For the Bulldogs, they have anchors on both sides of the ball in senior running back Hunter Stalcup, who led the Smoky Mountain Conference in rushing yards last year and junior linebacker Kadence Leatherwood, who was the team’s leading tackler. For Andrews, the strength is up-front in seniors Dalton Rose and Tyler West.
Watson said his team had great attendance at summer workouts, and is trying to get them back in the football grind. The N.C. High School Athletic Association only allows teams to wear helmets for the first two days of practice, then add shoulder pads for days three through five. Day six is the first day teams can be in full pads and make contact, which is what Murphy did on Saturday.
Coaches have also been trading off different players at times, seeing who fits best in what position group to maximize the amount of talent they can have on the field. Several kids have stepped up as leaders so far, whether it’s from the senior class or a lead by example underclassman like Leatherwood.
“That’s what you have to have,” Watson said. “Kids that will do what they’re asked to do and be very coachable. He’s one of those that just sticks out. The rest of our seniors are a good group of kids, though it’s not as many as we had last year.”
Over in Andrews, Phillips has liked the focus of his team, which has carried over from summer workouts. He projects a typically small roster of 21-22 kids, with about 17 showing up for workouts throughout the summer.
Throughout the first week, Phillips said the group did a good job living up to the three C’s he emphasizes throughout his program – character, commitment and coachability. He’s seen them remain positive with each other, even when times get hard, as well as always be coachable.
When he met with this year’s senior class, Phillips said they want to stay a winning program after capturing Andrews football’s first conference championship since 1983 last fall. But for that to happen, the focus first is on getting an inexperienced team to improve and build confidence and toughness.
“Every day at practice you want to see the little things get a little better,” Phillips said. “Next Friday we go into Franklin for a scrimmage, and we want to see where those little things are at. That’s just kind of the takeaway from a scrimmage, where’s our technique, where’s our physicality, where’s our grit, where’s our conditioning at.”