By Adam Robinson
sports editor

T.R. Miller Tiger head coach Jamie Riggs and his 2014 football team recently finished up summer workouts and have moved on to fall practice.
“Summer workouts have been OK,” Riggs said. “I think things are just a little different now from the way we operate in the summer especially now with playing as early as we play. So, I am not sure any of us know what we need to do and should be doing right now. For years, we followed the same procedures except for about the last 10 years, but I think our summer has been OK.”
One thing Riggs said he misses about the way things are done now is there used to be an excitement about the beginning of practice with the players, coaches and the community and everybody else.
“Because you are practicing about three times a week now in the summer, there is really no excitement at all,” Riggs said. “I kind of miss that a little bit. But other than that, that part is OK. So far, we are a little bigger than we have been. With that, that means we are a little slower than we have been. I have got some good speed in some pockets, but we don’t have the team speed that we have had in some years. It is just something that is a little bit different, so we will have to adjust to that. We worked out three times a week. We lifted and had some short practices. We never practiced more than an hour and a half.”
As for fall practice, Riggs said that is kind of strange these days.
“It is hard to say when the summer stops and fall practice begins now,” he said. “We do so much in shorts now these days, I think everybody is glad when we finally put the pads on. We play a week earlier this year and you have less time in pads than really I think we need. We spend so much time in shorts now, a lot of the learning gets done. Where before you had not done any practicing in the summer, you had a lot of knowledge stuff to do. Now, all that is taken care of in the summer. Now, it is a matter of working on the fundamentals and some things. By this time, you hope they know where to line up because you have spent all summer trying to figure all that out.”
Right now, Riggs said that he is looking for some younger players to step up.
“It is just hard to tell right now, because the game is played with shoulder pads and equipment,” he said. “Until you have that on, it is just hard to tell. Also, it is hard to tell because we do spring practice a lot earlier than most. There is a lot of time between when we go in pads then and now. Some guys have grown and some have matured. Some are better than they were at the end of spring training. Right now in the fall practice, you are just trying to get a look at them and determine who is ready to go and who can help you and what positions you think you are short at and need to make some moves. That is what this is about and you hope someone shows up who didn’t look like they were ready to play in the spring, but they are ready now to help add some depth to you.
“You hope that your younger players will come on and do some things for you. That is what we are doing right now. You know what they players can do that played for you last year. Really, you spend a lot of time looking at the other ones.”