TIM MORSE: High school football starting too early

Tonight is the first night of the high school football season.

A game that actually counts.

Let me repeat.

Tonight is the first night of the high school football season.

Forgive me if I don’t sound excited. I usually associate high school football with cooler weather. I know we live in the south and temperatures don’t seem to cool off until the postseason. But when the Georgia Independent Schools Association teams begin their regular seasons tonight, I can’t get excited.

Granted, much-needed rain has cooled the temps down some this week, but somewhere, I just don’t believe we are finished with the high 90-degree temperatures.

And tonight when Deerfield-Windsor plays host to Trinity Christian-Sharpsburg at Webb Memorial Stadium at 7:30 p.m., the steamy humidity will likely put conditions in a sauna to shame.

The GISA isn’t the only culprit here. Next Thursday, the Georgia High School Association allows its schools to begin regular-season play. Lee County will meet Jones County in the much-anticipated Corky Kelly Classic at Mercer University’s Five Star Stadium. Then most of the rest of the state will begin play a day later on Aug. 19.

There are going to be many football fanatics crucify me. But consider this:

The GISA completes its regular season on Oct. 21. Its state championship games will be finished on Nov. 19. Chances are, we probably won’t even have had a snap of cold weather by then.

Heck, the leaves will still be on most of the trees.

I once had a coach tell me that in the south, the football and baseball high school sports seasons were backward. This particular coach said that baseball should be played during the fall when football season is usually played.

And football should be played during the spring like they used to do in 1980s when the now defunct United States Football League (USFL) played its games.

I thought this guy was weird at the time but the more I think about it, he made a lot of sense. If the prep baseball season started in early August, that would allow the regular-season and the playoffs to be completed by early December.

Doesn’t sound like a bad idea considering how cold weather can wreak havoc on a pitcher’s arm.

And football could start in early February with the season concluding in early June, just in time before the heat wave starts.

For most high school football teams, they will have played anywhere from three to four games before Labor Day, which this year is the opening weekend of the college football season.

I know the players practice in this heat all summer and the start of the season tonight couldn’t get here fast enough. But the older I get, these early starts are making less sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love football season. From watching the players get excited to the pep rallies to the smell of fresh-cooked burgers and hot dogs coming from the grills outside the concession stands, this is the best time of the year for sports fans.

For us neutral fans, there’s nothing like chasing down scores on Friday nights to see how your rival did and finding out about the upsets and all the superlatives. What a great time of the year.

Back in my day, you practiced for most of the month of August and played your first game on Labor Day weekend. If you were blessed to make a deep postseason run, you coordinated your playoff road trips with your wife and often groaned when she said she wanted to go to the game and stay overnight in the city where your team playing. That way, she could go Christmas shopping the next day.

Now, the GISA season will conclude the weekend before Thanksgiving, the GHSA not much later than that.

I’d be okay with moving the season back to like it used to be. But I know most will disagree.

What’s next, high school football games in early June?