Earlier this week, the Georgia High School Athletic Association (GHSA for short) board gathered and decided that fall sports are able to move ahead, and softball will be the first up to the plate when August comes around and start on a regular schedule.

Football is an entirely different story all together. First and foremost, the season is being pushed back two weeks and the championship games are slated to be held the weekend after Christmas at Georgia State University.

So September 4 is the date to mark on the calendar for Cedartown vs Carrollton and Rockmart vs Rome in the Corky Kell Classic. Yet as the teams get closer to the time when football season is soon to get underway, local teams face the following problem: restrictions on how they can practice and develop heading into September are still limited.

This week marked the first time back that both the Bulldogs and Jackets football squads were able to don helmets again, but access to team facilities like the locker rooms or being able to get the whole team together for conditioning and drills remains on lockdown.

Bulldogs first-year head coach Jamie Abrams said he’s still taking practices day-by-day when the team can get together in smaller groups, but that it leaves behind the ability for coaches to work in different areas of group development with the way the rules stand currently.

“It is way different than anything I have ever experienced,” Abrams said. “We generally have a clearer direction at this point, but right now it is a day-by-day, week-by-week basis.”

He said the good news is that his team is getting to spend time on individual player development as the season draws closer, which is providing positive results.

Rockmart on the other hand is having no problems at all in getting ready for a Sept. 4 showdown to start the season against the Wolves. Last week, Head Coach Biff Parson said that even with the restrictions in place, the Jackets are putting together a team he believes will be one to contend with when they enter a new region and classification this year.

The Jackets not only have a lot of returning talent in the senior and junior classes, but younger players who will likely get the opportunity to see playing time this year as freshmen after they went on a championship run in 2019 at Rockmart Middle School. And even with restrictions in place, the team is building their strengths together even at a distance, or as Parson put it: “they’re bonding together.”

One message he did want to relay is the desire for the team to get back to business as usual.

“Give us a chance to play,” he said. “These kids, this community, and I’m sure I’m speaking for the consensus across the state and America, the kids want to play.”

Easier said than done so far. Though the GHSA has announced football dates, there’s also questions of whether fans will be allowed to attend, how concessions will work, halftime shows with the bands, social distancing in the stands… the list could go on and on.

Until those particular pieces of the puzzle are worked out, the Jackets and Bulldogs fan base and teams themselves will have to wait for more information and do the best they can to get ready for what is likely going to be a weird and wonderful return to the gridiron in 2020.