Football practice opens Friday

The Mountain Home Tigers open football practice this Friday.

For the first time in a number of years, the Tigers do not have a "zero week" game, so are starting practice later than usual.

In all, Mountain Home Tiger head football coach Brian Floyd thinks it will be good for the program.

"We do lose our bye week. Caldwell's coming down into our division, so we only have one non-league game, and it's in the middle of the season against Jerome," the coach said.

"We start right out the game going against Columbia and Skyview back-to-back there. Those are going to be really tough games for us, but starting (practice) closer to when school starts I think is going to help our numbers, especially with the lower levels.

"So we don't want to lose those kids that would say, 'Oh I didn't know we were starting at this date or that.' We're starting so close to the start of school that we shouldn't have those issues this year, and that's one of the things we're really pushing for is getting things a little bit later and hopefully get more kids out.

"Like I said, our first five games are against conference opponents, so we'll have to really knuckle down and get after it."