Statesboro began final preparations for the 2008 season Monday, shifting attention from themselves to Week One opponent Josey.

            The Blue Devils got back to work Monday having a better understanding of where they stand. Last Wednesday the team held an inter-squad scrimmage, and Pennington said his team continues to be, “consistently inconsistent.”

            “It was a very effective practice,” said Pennington Monday. “The one thing that came out of it, is we’re very consistent at being inconsistent. We’re trying to prime ourselves to be in midseason form at the beginning of the season — and it’s hard to be in midseason form with the inconsistencies that we’re having.”

            Pennington went on to explain that his squad can look very, very good at times, while at other times SHS, “doesn’t have too much to write home about.”

            Statesboro’s first game is Friday at Womack Field against the Augusta school.

            “We can’t accept it,” said Pennington of his team’s problems. “Our coaches and players — we all must know there has to be a sense of urgency.”

            The Devils also found a pleasant surprise in some personnel. Pennington said a number of sophomores stepped up last week, and he expects those young Devils to contribute maybe sooner than expected. There were even a couple of freshmen who may the field this season.

            As for Josey, Statesboro will now transition its afternoon workouts towards studying the opponent. Pennington thinks of it as a sliding scale — and after the problems that surfaced during the aforementioned scrimmage — there’s still just as much work to do on the homefront as there is in scouting the Eagles (4-6, 2007).

            “The transition is kind of a gradual process — because we’re not going to forget about our fundamentals,” he said. “We’re not into the season enough to where we’re being good at our techniques and our fundamentals. We still have to spend time on the concepts of how to block, how to run, how to catch — how to tackle.

            “Hopefully, five weeks from now, the scale will change a little bit more and we won’t have to concentrate so much on that part of the game.”

            Kickoff Friday is at 7:30 p.m.

            Chad Bishop can be reached at (912) 489-9408.