LAGRANGE – The Troup Tigers put the wraps on their first week of spring practice on Friday with an intra-squad scrimmage, and things are going smoothly so far according to head coach Tanner Glisson.

“Everything’s been going well,” Glisson said. “We put a lot of hard work into our weight room, and into our installation for a while now. So it was good to get out on the field and put the pads on and see how it goes. We’re actually a little bit further ahead than I thought we’d be, so that’s good.”

The Tigers got started on Tuesday, and they practiced for four straight days.

After two straight days of practicing in full pads, the Tigers were in shells on Thursday before putting the full pads on again for Friday’s scrimmage.

Troup will have a similar schedule next week, and it will wrap up its spring-practice period with a scrimmage game in West Point on April 27 at 6 p.m.

Glisson said the program is going to start having a greater presence in West Point.

“We’re going to try a JV game or two during the season as well, just do some things to try to reach out to that area,” Glisson said. “I think we’ll have a big crowd down there.”

This is Glisson’s first opportunity to have a spring practice at Troup.

A year ago, Glisson wasn’t hired until late in the school year, and it was too late to hold a spring practice.

Glisson has also been able to institute his offseason conditioning program for the first time, and that included two weeks of early-morning workouts at the school in March.

Glisson said the idea of the March workouts was to get the players back in a football frame of mind.

“We had a couple of goals in mind,” Glisson said. “Number one, we wanted to get everybody refocused. Sometimes, football season seems like a long time away, so we wanted to get refocused on what we had to do, and create some discipline, and see who really wanted to play.

Glisson said the “secondary goal was to get them in some kind of shape so we can make it through spring football.”

When school ends, Troup will head into its summer program, and then in late July it’ll be time to begin official preseason practice.

Troup opens its season on Aug. 19 with a game at Hardaway.

The Tigers went 1-9 last season, but they did end the season on a high note with a 28-0 win over Whitewater.

“I’m real excited about where we are,” Glisson said. “We’re not going to go 10-0, but we’re going to make some progress.”

The Callaway Cavaliers will begin their spring practice the first week of May as they look to build on their successful 2015 season.

Under head coach Pete Wiggins, Callaway went 10-2 and won a region championship, and it advanced to the second round of the state playoffs where it fell to eventual state-champion Westminster.

LaGrange, which is coming off a 5-5 season under second-year head coach Dialleo Burks, will not be having a spring practice this season.

Teams that don’t have a spring practice are eligible to play two preseason games, and that’s what LaGrange will be doing.

Reach Kevin Eckleberry at (706) 884-7311 or on Twitter @lagrangesports