If there wasn’t reason enough for a sense of time to reinforce its importance for the Greyhounds, this fact alone should underscore it. A month from this week, Jones County begins the regular season Aug. 20 against Northside in the Middle Georgia Touchdown Club Kickoff Classic at Mercer University’s Five Star Stadium.
The Greyhounds resumed their summer work last week with three days of scheduled practice, working around rain that passed through the area.
“We just took two weeks off, which we started doing last year. It just gives the guys a chance to reenergize a little bit. It’s very important to get that break for your guys,” Greyhounds head coach Mike Chastain said. “You do so much from January-on nowadays. They need a little bit a of a break, and obviously the coaches do, too.”
The Greyhounds will host two days of offseason team activities (OTAs) Wednesday and Thursday of this week with Jefferson, Tift County and Cedar Shoals in Gray for two days of workouts. All three should provide a strong test and barometer for the Greyhounds. Tift is a AAAAAA program but played in AAAAAAA prior to the latest GHSA reclassification. Cedar Shoals has been in the playoffs the past five years during its time in either the AAAAA and AAAA classification with Jefferson being among northeast Georgia’s top programs, winning at least 10 games in every year but two since 2012 and being the 2020 AAAA runner-up. They’ll move up to AAAAA this year.
“We try to pick some teams that have been successful. A lot of times, you look for teams that are willing to come work and try to pick teams that’ll do the things the way you want to do it,” Chastain said. “You also want to pick some teams that will challenge you. It’ll be a good little camp for us.”
Next week, JCHS begins the ‘acclimation’ portion of its summer workouts prior to the first day that of practice in which pads are allowed Aug. 1. The Greyhounds will also host Buford for a scrimmage Aug. 12.
“No doubt, there’s a sense of urgency as we start to ramp it up a little bit,” Chastain said.
During the course of an offseason, coaches spend lots of time with players across all parts of the roster through meetings, weightlifting, traveling to attend camps and having on-field activity. In that, the Greyhounds coaching staff is able to learn a lot about its roster. But there’s another area of growth that’s been evident – experience.
“We’re bigger and stronger. One of our coaches the other day made the observation that everybody is driving. That means we’re getting a little bit older. We’ve got more of a veteran team,” Chastain said. “Last year, we played a lot of young guys, a lot of tenth graders. Every Friday night, we started at least ten sophomores or younger. This year, starting a lot of juniors and seniors is going to be big for us.”
Regardless, despite the experience, it does not change the expectations within the program.
“The expectations never change around here. We expect to be the best we can be and win as many ball games as we possibly can,” Chastain said. “I feel like we have a good little group here and I’m excited to see what’s coming up.”
