By Kevin Eckleberry

kevin.eckleberry@lagrangenews.com

LAGRANGE – The dead week is over, and it’s time to get back to work.

Last week, the local football teams took a break for the Georgia High School Association-mandated dead week.

For seven days, all sports teams in the state, football and otherwise, were prohibited from participating in any organized activities.

There were no early-morning workouts, no scrimmage games, no weight-lifting sessions.

Now with the dead week in the rear-view mirror, the football teams from Callaway, LaGrange and Troup will return to their respective summer programs in preparation for a season that is less than a month away.

The Cavaliers, Grangers and Tigers will each have two weeks remaining before the transition is made to the start of official preseason practice on July 25.

That gives each team two more weeks of summer football.

For each team, the summer program consists of morning workouts in addition to seven-on-seven and 11-on-11 competitions, as well as various team and individual camps.

After preseason practice begins on July 25, teams will be able to hold their first full-contact drills on Aug. 1.

For LaGrange, there will be less than a week between the first full-contact practice and a preseason game.

LaGrange will play Heard County on Aug. 4, and it will then have two weeks before opening the regular season on Aug. 18 against Callaway.

Troup will play its preseason game on Aug. 10 against Harris County, and it will kick off the regular season on Aug. 17 against Hardaway.

Callaway will be in Hogansville for its preseason game on Aug. 11 against Northside-Columbus before jumping into the regular season on Aug. 18 against LaGrange.

Each team had a busy June.

Troup hosted a seven-on-seven and an 11-on-11 competition last month, and head Tanner Glisson said those types of activities are good for his team.

“This team, we’ve realized the more competition the better,” Glisson said. “You get tired of going against yourself all the time. The more we can go against somebody else the better.”

LaGrange hosted a multi-team, 11-on-11 competition last month, and it will be at home for another one on Friday.

LaGrange head coach Dialleo Burks said the 11-on-11s are beneficial in large part because they better simulate what a real game is like.

“Seven-on-sevens are great, but it’s different when you’ve got somebody coming at you and you’re trying to catch a ball,” Burks said. “You can get hit, rather than just running by.”

Callaway’s players stayed on the move in June as well.

Just about every day during the month the Cavaliers were doing something, whether it was a workout at the school, a seven-on-seven competition at the University of Georgia, or an offensive-lineman camp in Cochran.

“The month of June was really good,” Callaway head coach Pete Wiggins said. “We had right at 30 workouts, counting the camps.”