The 2016 football season will begin Monday morning when Snyder, Ira and Hermleigh begin preseason practice.
Ira and Hermleigh are scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. while Snyder will take the field at 8:30 a.m. Teams will practice in shorts and helmets through Thursday and pads may be put on for the first time Friday.
Midnight Madness, scheduled to start at 12:01 a.m., will open Friday’s workouts for Ira and Hermleigh. Snyder will practice from 8-10:30 a.m. Friday.
“We plan to take advantage of the first four days to continue teaching the new offensive and defensive schemes,” said first-year Snyder coach Cory Mandrell. “We will be ready to roll on Friday. I want the players to be comfortable on what we will be doing before putting on pads.”
Mandrell said player attendance during the summer strength and conditioning camp was promising.
“We had a good core of players who showed up almost every day,” he said. “You can tell which players that they were by watching the first few days of practices. They had great effort and attitudes. The players took advantage of the open weight room and did extra work on their own.”
Mandrell said he and his staff will be looking for players who possess one characteristic.
“We will be preaching mental toughness and want to be the best team in that area every Friday night,” he said. “I will take 11 mentally tough players ahead of 11 physical specimen who aren’t mentally tough.”
Snyder’s offense will be inexperienced this year, but does have athletic ability, Mandrell said.
Jarrett Reneau will begin practice as the starting quarterback. Due to an injury, he did not play on offense until late in the season and caught five passes for 103 yards.
Defensively, Leshun Burns, Luis Cruz, Chris Depaz, Kabren Wills, Andres Medina and Sean Humphrey are returning this season.
“We did get a lot of work on defense before the end of school,” Mandrell said. “We’ve got a lot of players coming back and expect to be a talented defense.”
Snyder will scrimmage Idalou at Tiger Stadium on Aug. 12 and end the preseason with a scrimmage at Pecos on Aug. 18.
“Idalou will be a good scrimmage,” Mandrell said. “It doesn’t matter that they are a smaller school. Teams usually have their best improvement from the first to second scrimmage. The first scrimmage is a learning experience. We will work on our weaknesses for the Pecos scrimmage. We want to be ready when the season starts at Greenwood.”
Hermleigh first-year coach Derek Ahearn plans to use the first week to implement his system and learn what the players can do.
“It’s a time when we want to help players get in good physical conditioning,” he said. “We want to establish groundwork on offense and defense and push fundamentals. I want the players to know the new system like a book. A short scrimmage that will end Friday’s practice give us more of an idea what areas need work during the second week.”
Hermleigh will host Grady in its first scrimmage Aug. 12 and conclude the preseason with a scrimmage at Westbrook Aug. 19.
Dylan Sorrells and Eli Garza are Hermleigh’s most experienced players on both sides of the ball.
“We will put players at different positions to determine where they would best help the team,” Ahearn said. “We will need to decide whether it would be best to run the spread or a tight formation. We will figure that out during the two scrimmages.”
Ira looks to continue its success with an experienced group of players coming back for head coach Toby Goodwin.
“We’re ready to get it going,” Goodwin said. “I’m excited what this team could do with a lot of juniors who got game experience last season. We need to work on conditioning and get in the football mode during the first week. A lot of our conditioning work is drills simulating game situations.”
Quarterback Hunter Cotton and running back Ramiro Rios are coming back for Goodwin. Anthony Sosa is expected to lead the defense.
“Hunter has become a leader not only in football, but other sports,” Goodwin said. “He will give us good leadership at that position. Ramiro rushed for more than 1,000 yards last season. Anthony is one of our better athletes and we plan to use him at different positions.”
The Bulldogs will scrimmage at Jayton Aug. 12 and host Sterling City Aug. 19.
“After the two scrimmages, we will work on fine-tuning our skills,” Goodwin said. “We only can control what we do every week. We don’t need to worry about what the other teams are doing.”
Football Schedules
SNYDER
Aug. 26 Midland Greenwood 7:30 p.m. Away
Sept. 2 Muleshoe 7:30 p.m. Away
Sept. 9 Seminole 7:30 p.m. Home
Sept. 16 Sweetwater 7:30 p.m. Away
Sept. 23 Levelland-y 7:30 p.m. Home
Sept. 30 Perryton-x 7:30 p.m. Home
Oct. 7 Big Spring 7:30 p.m. Away
Oct. 21 Wylie 7:30 p.m. Home
Oct. 28 Stephenville 7:30 p.m. Away
Nov. 4 Brownwood 7:30 p.m. Home
y — Hall of Honor game
x — Homecoming
**
IRA
Aug. 25 Knox City 8 p.m. Jayton
Sept. 2 New Home 7:30 p.m. Home
Sept. 9 Anton 7:30 p.m. Away
Sept. 16 Robert Lee 7:30 p.m. Away
Sept. 23 Ropes 7:30 p.m. Home
Sept. 30 Ackerly Sands-x 7:30 p.m. Home
Oct. 7 Hermleigh 7:30 p.m. Home
Oct. 14 O’Donnel 7:30 p.m. Away
Oct. 21 Borden County 7:30 p.m. Away
Oct. 28 Klondike 7:30 p.m. Away
x — Homecoming
**
HERMLEIGH
Aug. 26 Motley County 7:30 p.m. Jayton
Sept. 2 Highland 7:30 p.m. Home
Sept. 9 Lueders-Avoca 7:30 p.m. Away
Sept. 16 Anton-x 7:30 p.m. Home
Sept. 23 Sterling City 7:30 p.m. Away
Sept. 30 Meadow 7:30 p.m. Home
Oct. 7 Ira 7:30 p.m. Away
Oct. 21 O’Donnell 7:30 p.m. Home
Oct. 28 Borden County 7:30 p.m. Away
Nov. 4 Klondike 7:30 p.m. Home
x — Homecoming