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Bruins building toward season-opener

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Derrick Pritchard had nearly a full offseason with the University School of Jackson football program last year after he was hired in February.

But the installation process for his brand of offense and defense with a team that lost a fair amount of experience from the season before was one that lasted throughout the spring, summer and well into the actual season.

Fast forward to this week and the third week of preseason work with still another month to go before the Bruins open the season against Peabody High School, and Pritchard likes where the team is on multiple fronts.

“We are so far ahead right now of where we were this time last year,” Pritchard said. “The kids understand our expectations and standards and have an idea of what it takes to meet them.

“And in turn, we know them as coaches, which means we understand them and how to click with them better than we did last year.”

This is the third week since TSSAA student-athletes returned from the two-week dead period, and Pritchard likes where his players are at this point regarding conditioning.

“We don’t attack it when we return from dead period in we want to get them ready to go through a 10-game schedule before the end of the first week,” Pritchard said. “It’s more of a stair-step process, and they’re doing well as far as that goes.

“If all the sudden we had a game scheduled for this week, would I feel good about our ability to play well for four quarters? Not yet, but fortunately we don’t have a game this week, so we’ve got time to get there. And we are working toward that.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news