Will season begin on time?

With new masks mandates and the delta variant running wild, there has been some question whether the 2021 prep football season will be affected before it is slated to begin in three weeks.
For the head football coaches at the various high schools in Vermilion Parish, it’s something that they are keeping an eye on, but they don’t believe that the start of the upcoming football season will be pushed back or delayed.
“I feel better about the season this year as opposed to last year,” Erath coach Eric LeBlanc said. “It’s not something that we have been too concerned about if they push the season back.
“It probably would have happened by now. I mean, things can change over the next couple of weeks, but as a staff, we feel better (about the season starting on time) than we did last year.”
Delcambre coach Artie Liuzza’s concern is not with the start of the season but what happens during the middle of the season.
“It’s not so much the start of the season for me but what happens in the middle of the season,” Liuzza said. “What happens if teams need to forego a week here and there like last year?
“I don’t know at this time if anyone is looking into pushing the season back, and I sure hope we don’t get there.
“I’m going on a full go unless we hear otherwise. If something does happen, I’m hoping that things will be on a case by case basis instead of affecting everybody.”
Like most coaches, Vermilion Catholic coach Broc Prejean is taking a wait-and-see attitude.
“Things like that are out of our control, and we preach to the kids to worry about what you can control,” Prejean said. “We had kids show up for practice with masks ready for being inside the building. They understand it’s something that we have to do, and we have to mitigate this as best as we can, and they have to do their part.”
Abbeville head football coach Roderick Moy, whose team is in the middle of a two-week quarantine due to COVID, also feels that the season will not be postponed.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I know that we are going to do everything possible to get the entire season played because we want that for our seniors.
“They saw what happened last year and how games were canceled and how the season was only eight games and that we lost a couple of games to COVID. I think that everyone is going to do their best to make sure that the season gets played in full.”
First-year Kaplan coach Cory Brodie is not a fan of either the season being pushed back or unintentional breaks once the season beings.
“If I had to choose, I would rather the season being pushed back rather than have the routine derailed during the season,” he said. “The problem is you can do everything right and still end up on the wrong side of this.
“I think that we’ve done a good job of following everything, and this being the second year that we’ve had to deal with this, it’s a lot easier to tell these kids because they’ve seen it happen first-hand.”
All the coaches polled feel that, as of now, nothing will change and that the season will go on without a hitch, but they also feel that if everyone, fans, coaches, players, and administration all do what they can, then there won’t be an issue for 2021 football.