Madison County Red Raiders

Reprinted from the Madison County Journal Thursday, August 9, 2007 edition

SUMMER FOOTBALL 

Owens Says There’s Never Enough PreSeason Time to Get Prepared 

by BEN MUNRO 

Ask Raider head coach Randell Owens if the month of August is ample time for the arduous task of prepping for the regular season, which starts Aug. 31 against Franklin County, and you’ll get a quick and definite answer.
“No,” he said with a laugh.
Of course, the start of the regular season will be pretty quick and definite, too. As of press time, kickoff was just 22 days away.
But Owens said he believes starting by looking at the big picture — that being the playoffs and everybody’s ultimate goal of winning a state championship — and budgeting that time accordingly.
“You take the time that you have and you work backwards,” Owens said. 

Pre-Season To Do List: 

These are the things the RAIDERS must do to get ready of their August 31 opener according to Coach Randell Owens.

1. Getting in Condition
2. The Teaching Offensive and Schemes
3. The Evaluation of Personnel, Getting People in the Right Positions

 Which, of course, brings Madison County that first hurdle—the season opener with Franklin County August 31.  “At this point, you get the kids to focus to the first game,” Owens said. 

Football practice for the Raiders last Wednesday, Madison County’s two-a-day practices crept along at a slow pace so coaches could take the time to teach schemes. 

However, this week’s workouts are in pads. “We put the pads on and see how well they retain it under pressure when we put the contact element to it,” Owens said. 

The Raiders will be tested further in a controlled scrimmage between the offense and defense Friday and in an intrasquad scrimmage August 17.  Madison County scrimmages Chamblee August 24 in a final test run. Then it’s on to 11 grueling weeks of regular season football, starting with Franklin County. 

“Then you take everythin g you know and you put it all together on a Sunday and put a game plan together and ‘Let’s go play Franklin and do the best we can,’” Owens said. The goal after that, of course, is to be firing on all cylinders by the start of the region schedule. 

Right now, the Raider question marks are equal parts offensive and defensive. Madison County has lots its starting quarterback while center is a question mark and the receiving corps is all green.  On the other side of the ball, the linebacking corps and secondary are all raw. 

“It’s scary,” Owens said. At the same time, change in personnel is the nature of high school football, Owens said. “In high school, that’s the excitement of high school football, he said.  “It’s not like the NFL where you groom players for years.  You’re starting over every year at some level.  It makes it interesting.  You don’t get bored. 

NOTES:  Two-a-days were mostly instructional, Owens reported. 

The session consisted of viewing video and power-point presentations like instruction from coaches. “We’re teaching it like they’ve never done it before,” Owens said. Owens also said conditioning was part  of the agenda. 

“They’ve worked hard,” Owens said.  “It was really hot.  It was a lot of learning.  We didn’t get any evaluations done or anything like that.  We slowed it down.”