Columbus High School football coach Joshua Pulphus had a familiar feeling when the Falcons filed in Tuesday morning for the first day of summer workouts.
“It’s like seeing an old family member when you haven’t seen them in a while,” Pulphus said.
And make no mistake: His players were similarly pumped to be back on the field.
“They were excited,” Pulphus said. “You would have thought that Santa Claus just arrived.”
Considering the June 1 starts of Heritage Academy, New Hope, Caledonia and other local schools, Santa’s sleigh might have reached the Falcons’ sports complex somewhere around early February, but Pulphus and his team don’t mind: It’s time to get to work.
“There’s no way to get that time made up,” Pulphus said.
Before beginning to get in shape for the season, which begins Aug. 21, he and the Falcons had to await the arrival of masks, gloves, disinfectant, sanitizer and other protective equipment for players and coaches, an attempt to keep players from picking up COVID-19 while working out. The coach knows there’s no easy way to simply catch up on the time they missed, but he knows it doesn’t mean he can overcompensate at his players’ expense.
“There’s no way to get that time made up, and I’m not going to come out here and push the kids too, too, too hard,” Pulphus said. “It’s not fair for them.”
Instead, he and the Falcons’ coaching staff will reduce the playbook and make sure players are acclimated to the summer heat and ready to play a full game.
“Our focus right now is being able to play four quarters and to prepare the kids to be in shape,” Pulphus said.
At Wednesday morning’s workout, that took several different forms, as Columbus coaches spread players out across the football facilities. Pulphus said he is limiting groups to 21 players max, which may sound high but he attributes that number to the Falcons’ dense varsity and junior varsity rosters.
To the side of the field house, one group of Falcons lifted weights, bench pressing or working their abs. A few players ran sprints on one corner of the track next to the playing field; others at the far end of the track practiced agility. The fourth and final group occupied the grass practice field in the back.
By keeping players spread out, staggering pick-up and drop-off times and locations and disinfecting equipment after each use, Columbus coaches can do their best to prevent the spread — but it’s also up to players to exercise sound judgment outside of practice.
“We’re going to do our best to make sure we practice safety here, but when kids go home, they have to make sure they practice it as well,” Pulphus said.
Falcons ready for whatever happens
Pulphus knows an outbreak is possible anywhere and that it would have ramifications for a 2020-21 season that is already questionable at best amid rising COVID-19 case numbers in the state.
Options from cancellation to a spring football season to a shortened fall schedule are all possible.
Pulphus said he’s heard the most likely option — if such an action must be taken — is to delay the season two weeks, forcing the cancellation of each team’s first two games. He said it would be tough for the Falcons to scratch a pair of contests with Provine and Noxubee County on Aug. 21 and Aug. 28.
“That’s a game that you really want to play,” Pulphus said of the season opener against the Rams. Additionally, he said, “Noxubee’s a great rivalry game, and I’d hate to lose that.”
A last-minute switch to a spring season, Pulphus said, would likely result in highly-recruited seniors sitting out, hoping to avoid injury before starting their college careers a few short months later.
Pulphus said he’d rather see the season canceled outright than crammed into the spring, but he’s not keen on either option. The lack of showcases and camps over the summer hamstrung the recruiting of the Falcons’ senior stars — quarterback Ethan Conner, linebacker Steven Cattledge and offensive lineman Johnathan Dickerson. All three have offers from every junior college program in the state, Pulphus said, with Conner and Cattledge receiving interest from the likes of Mississippi State and Auburn.
But that interest hasn’t turned into scholarship offers just yet, Pulphus said, because his players had no chances to showcase their skills in front of college recruiters.
“They needed the summer camps,” he said. “That’s why a lot of schools haven’t pulled the trigger on them: because they want to see them personally.”
And if no 2020 season takes place, those valuable opportunities to wow college coaches disappear further for the likes of Conner, Cattledge, Dickerson and other players hoping to catch on at lower levels.
“If we have a season, that will help them out tremendously,” Pulphus said. “If we don’t, that will hurt them tremendously in reference to four-year scholarships.”
But Pulphus said he’s remaining optimistic in the face of uncertainty. All he can do is prepare the Falcons for the season they are currently scheduled to have, and as of Tuesday, that’s just what Pulphus and his fellow coaches have been doing.
“I can only control what I can control,” he said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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