High School Football Programs in McLennon County on Hold

It's that time of year when kids and parents are getting ready for high school football. Well, in some counties anyway.

Texas loves its high school football. In most counties, practices begins on August 3rd, but not in McLennan County. They'll have to wait till September 8th due to cases of COVID-19 in the area.

That's a tough break for coaches and kids who we hope will eventually get back to playing a season, but may be behind compared to other high school programs.

McLennan County officials are hoping to change that. Superintendents and McLennan County officials met on Monday night to discuss options, but Connolly head football coach Shane Andersontells FOX44 News that:

“I was not in the meeting, obviously, I’ve spoken with my superintendent since the meeting – basically he said there’s been no change to the order, and they did not feel that the Health Department was budging on that.”

Health officials are just trying to keep everybody safe during the pandemic, so is it fair to have a different set of rules for everybody? No. Coach Anderson goes on to say,

“As a coach you have to be optimistic, we’re gonna sell it to the kids saying when we get going, we’re gonna have more tread on the tires. But at the end of the day, when we line up to play Salado out of Bell County in the second district game, and they’re on game seven and we’re on game three, that’s not right. It’s not safe. It’s not healthy. It’s just not how the game was meant to be played.”

Last week, the UIL announced that it was delaying the start of Class 6A and 5A activities, including high school football and band.

"These adjustments reflect the public health situation at this time and the varying numbers of COVID-19 cases across different geographic areas of the state," their announcement reads. "This plan provides a delay for schools in highly-populated metro areas, primarily conferences 5A-6A, given the challenges with COVID-19 those communities are facing, while providing schools in other areas, primarily 1A-4A, an opportunity to start seasons on schedule."

You can see a full list of UIL schedules here.

What do you think of the delays to this year's athletics? Let us know in the comments.