My week in Cayuga

What does it take for a team to get ready for a game Friday night?
That is the question I went in search of this season when I spent a week watching Cayuga prepare for its game against Overton. The story has been published in Sunday’s edition of the Herald-Press and has been posted on our web site, along with numerous pictures.
We all know football teams practice during the week to get ready for a game. But there is much more than practice and that is what I wanted to show our readers.
I first had this story idea about six years ago, but the timing never worked out until this year when Cayuga head coach Tommy Allison opened the doors to the Cayuga Wildcat football program.
From the hours spent by the coaches over the weekend coming up with a game plan to practices during the week and even pregame speeches just minutes before the start of the game, I got an inside view that most don’t even realize goes on.
First I want to thank coach Allison for granting me the unlimited access to his team. I also want to thank the Wildcat coaches and players for welcoming me that week.
Through my years of covering high school football, I have seen bits and pieces of what a team goes through to get ready for a Friday night. But this was the first time I have seen it come together and even I was amazed by what I witnessed.
• The number of hours the coaches put in. During the football season, coaches work seven days a week. They work half the day on Saturday and Sunday and even more during the week. From Monday to Wednesday, they are at the school until at least 8 p.m. Thursday can be a very late night, especially if there is freshman and junior varsity games on the road.
• I have been to my share of practices but never saw how each practice builds off the one before. It starts Monday with the players working on their specific positions and then just builds from there, one level at a time.
• The amount of information players have to absorb each week. While most of the schemes, formations and plays that Cayuga runs were installed in the offseason and two-a-day practices, each week things get altered for that week’s opponents. In three days, the players have to understand all the changes that are made and execute them and then that will all change the following week.
• How different pregame is when I was not on the field. Maybe the strangest thing for me during that week was pregame and halftime. I am used to hearing the bands play, watching the crowd fill up the stands — the whole atmosphere of a Friday night game. But being in the lockeroom before the game and at halftime, it was like none of it existed. At halftime, it was like the game never stopped as I listened to the coaches talk about what adjustments to make and talk to the team about how the first half went. Funny thing is that football coaches have a hard time adjusting to this when they are spectators at games. The next week, the Cayuga coaches were at Carlisle, being spectators at a game, and at halftime, they looked lost, not sure what to do for those 30 minutes that football was not going on.

The week I spent covering Cayuga was a great experience. I learned so much more than I thought I would and I hope that knowledge has been passed on to the readers through the story and photos.