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BATON ROUGE — On Aug. 25, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards announced the extension of Phase II until Sept. 11 pushing back the start of the fall football season.
Executive Director Eddie Bonine met with the LHSAA Executive Committee on Wednesday to further discuss the 2020 fall football season after meeting with the Louisiana House of Representatives on Friday, Sept. 4. The Executive Committee voted 22-1 to begin contact sports in LHSAA Competition Stage 1. The LHSAA cannot overturn any government order disallowing the start of contact sports in their parish.
Cross country, swimming and volleyball began competition in Phase II. The Executive Committee approved that Football can begin practice in full pads on Sept. 10. Also on the agenda, the Executive Committee voted to approve a football schedule that includes a scrimmage (Sept. 24, 25 or 26), eight games (starting with their week 3 game on Oct. 1, 2 or 3) with a 32 team playoff bracket (beginning Nov. 27 or 28). The 2020 Prep Classic will be held on Dec. 26-28 in New Orleans at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
There are four LHSAA teams in Washington Parish including Bogalusa, Franklinton, Pine and Varnado.
Two local teams are playing scrimmage week on Thursday, Sept. 24 in Franklinton and Bogalusa and two more are competing on Friday, Sept. 25 with Pine and Varnado.
Franklinton is hosting Covington at 5 p.m., while Bogalusa travels to Fontainebleau for a 6 p.m. start on Sept. 24.
The next day, Pine heads to Albany for a 6 p.m. scrimmage and Varnado is on the road against Loranger, starting at 7 p.m.
All four teams are playing opening week games on Friday, Oct. 2 with the contests kicking off at 7 p.m.
Bogalusa hosts Franklinton for the Pine Burr Trophy. Pine is at home against Pearl River.Varnado is also at home playing East Iberville.
Under Article 4.4.4 in the LHSAA Constitution, the Board approved the select schools participation at the same venues as the non-select schools for the 2020-2021 school year.
“It’s exciting that the LHSAA can contribute to some sort of normality for the students and schools.” said Executive Director, Eddie Bonine.
The LHSAA staff has developed fall sport-specific event guidelines with help from Dr. Gregory W. Stewart, from the Tulane Sports and the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, for schools when conducting interscholastic competition. Competition guidelines will be posted in the near future.