It’s been a busy summer so far for the Southeast Bulloch Yellow Jacket football team. This week coach Jared Zito gave the team a little break and had them become coaches for a few days as part of their second annual youth clinic which was being held Tuesday through Thursday for kindergarten through fifth graders. 

“We held a middle school clinic a few weeks ago with a good turnout and this week we have a little over 50 kids on hand,” Zito said. “We put them through a few drills and taught some basic skills and then did some fun things at the end of the camp. The good thing is we have a lot of repeat campers so they catch on pretty quickly to what we are doing. Our upper classmen are there to help teach and they really enjoy it and the kids really look up to them.” 

A year after winning their first state playoff game in almost 50 years, the Yellow Jackets were hit with the reality of just how difficult making the jump from Class 3-A to Class 4-A can be. This summer instead of playing in 7-on-7 leagues and padded camps Zito decided to go back to the basics and just stay home and focus on fundamentals. 

“The is the first time I can remember as a coach that we didn’t go anywhere,” Zito said. “We felt like we worked really hard in the off season to get stronger and we didn’t want to miss out on that time in the weight room to travel several days. We also made some schematic changes on both sides of the ball that could be better served by being here and working on things.” 

One of the biggest reasons for staying home and doing extended work was also due to situations which arose last year where Zito felt they were spending too much time teaching basic fundamentals when they should have been preparing for that week’s opponent. 

“We spent too much time teaching fundaments like leverage and tackling and couldn’t get to the work of preparing for who we were playing or installing something,” Zito explained. “We decided to just spend all summer on those kinds of things so when the fall rolls around we can wok more on our schemes and game plans for our opposition.” 

A year after making the jump in classifications Zito feels the team and coaches have a better understanding of what to expect from their schedule and is hoping the added stamina and strength will pay dividends in the close games they saw slip away last year. 

“We definitely have our challenges but we know better what to expect,” Zito said. “Out of region we know Statesboro and Effingham will be difficult. In region of course Benedictine will be the team to beat, Wayne County will be tough again, but we feel like we were close in our other region games and we think we will be able to handle things a little better with the work we have put in and some of the things we have changed from a schematic standpoint.” 

The Jackets will travel to South Effingham for a scrimmage game on August 11 and then open the 2023 season on the road at Liberty County on August 18.