Football -- a pre-preview

In just about a month, the football practice fields of Poinsett County's high schools will be teeming once again with kids getting ready for what they are sure will be stellar seasons. Some of the players will have to get used to new coaches while all the coaches will have to get used too many new players.

Of course, that's nothing new. Coaches move on and kids graduate every year.

Trumann, the county's biggest school returns about half of their starters from a team which finished 5-6 in the 4A-3. The key for them this season, considering they will continue to run the spread option offense, is how well veteran quarterback, Blaike Jones can run the offense.

Harrisburg, the new kid on the block as far as our coverage is concerned, will be bringing back seven starters from a team which started last season with a nine-game winning streak. Unfortunately, Hoxie broke their regular season streak in overtime and Fountain Lake ended their playoff run in the second round. For the Hornets, Zach Davis returns for his junior year in hopes of repeating his all-state honors from last season as well the winning streak (plus a few games) he helped to get going last year.

At EPC a new quarterback will be running the show. Byron Ford was instrumental last year as he helped the Warriors gain a 9-3 record and third round playoff appearance from his tailback position. Like many schools, fielding enough to have a team may be a problem after graduating the bulk of last year's team. August 3 will be a telling date as that is when summer practice will begin.

For Marked Tree, numbers shouldn't be as much of a problem as they are returning eight starters on offense. The real question mark for the Indians will be an almost entirely new coaching staff. Longtime defensive coordinator Waylon Dunn is now deservedly the head man after former head coach Tim Branum and assistant coach Luke Lovins both headed north to Paragould, and assistant Matt Wright took over the high school principal's position.

Anyway, in about five months, we'll know how each team's season turned out, who the heroes and the goats are and what rising star to look for next season. Until then, though, those who believe football should be a year round sport (myself included) already have their mouths watering for the first kickoff.

To help with this pigskin addiction, in late August the Democrat Tribune will be putting out it's annual Football Preview issue covering the Poinsett County teams as well as the teams covered by our sister papers, Manila, Corning, Piggott and Rector.

And that's my opinion this week, for what it's worth.