The football team might be a few steps behind the competition when their much anticipated season begins Friday. While the abnormal mid-August start to the school year has put Prosper students in the classroom, it has also taken Prosper football players off the field.

“We usually have a whole week of practice,” Assistant Football Coach Tony Cooper said. “But we didn’t have school, so we would have practice in the morning for two and a half hours, and then come back for another hour and a half in the afternoon.”

The early school start really hurts the Prosper football team at all levels. While Prosper had school in session on the week of Aug. 14, familiar opponents in the district, like McKinney North and Little Elm, were still going hard at practice for the season. The early start prevented Prosper from the grueling practices that other teams were doing  during that week to improve. When it was all said and done, Prosper had lost a crucial amount of practice time in just the one week school began.

“We lost probably over 20 hours of practice,” Cooper said. “It was a huge impact.”

With this in mind, the team even tried to go to the upper management of Prosper ISD to come away with answers.

“We went to the school board, and we went to admin,” Cooper said. “And they understood, but they said that this is what’s best for the district, and we had to work around that, and we were okay with that.”

The season begins Friday for the Eagles as they face Boerne Champion for the season opener in Georgetown for the second straight year. However, the coaching staff and the players feel as if they have finally caught up to the competition, despite the disadvantage early in the year.

“I think we are starting to catch our flow,”  Cooper said. “I’m trying to look at the situation half full, and use it as that, rather than a negative thing.”