Pintos begin prep for 2016 football season with camp

Players warm-up for drills at the start of Thursday's "defense day" at the CHS football camp.
Players warm-up for drills at the start of Thursday's "defense day" at the CHS football camp.

The Friday Nights Lights at Riley Field won't power on until August 26, but the season began this past week for the 2016 California Pintos football team.

A five-day camp at California High School was held last week as head coach Marty Albertson and his staff got their first chance to work with the students that will be on this year's Pintos football squads.

Nearly 60 players were in attendance for the camp. For returning varsity players, it was a chance to begin the process of improving at the positions they played last year, and maybe even taking on some new roles. For incoming freshmen, it was a first taste of action on the high school gridiron.

"This is a camp where we kind of evaluate positions and where we're at and see how we can build depth," Albertson said. "You always have to be at least two, and maybe, three deep at each position because of injuries and that kind of thing.

"It's a camp for young kids to learn the system, because they're coming up from eighth grade and it's a little bit different for them. Plus, we'll probably move a few kids around. Maybe what they played last year, they've gotten bigger or faster, so they can move to a different position. It's learning for all of them, of course."

The camp in California ended on Friday, but perhaps the biggest learning experience came Saturday. In a one-day Jamboree-style camp, the Pintos varsity traveled to Central Methodist University for controlled scrimmages against teams from all over the state.

While players will weight lift throughout the summer, the coaches have limited chances before the official start of practice on August 1 to work with them on the field. For California, the dead period for athletics runs from July 2 to July 10 and the team will use that as a recovery period between five-week weightlifting sets.

The heat index swelled to nearly triple digits last week, but players were only in full pads during Saturday's CMU camp. The first three days of the camp were helmet only, while Thursday and Friday were half-shell practices.

"We take a lot of water breaks and basically this is not a conditioning camp, it's more of a learning camp," Albertson said. "We do a lot of talking, listening and standing around, probably more than we would in the regular season."

In his sixth year at the helm of the Pintos football program, Albertson has never had a losing record as head coach. Last year, California posted a 6-4 record. The full 2016 schedule is below.

2016 California Pintos Football Schedule

Aug. 11: Media Night, 6:00 p.m.

Aug. 12: Jamboree @Blair Oaks, 7:00 p.m.

Aug. 20: @Monett, 1:00 p.m.

Aug. 26: Mexico, 7:00 p.m.

Sept. 2: @Warsaw, 7:00 p.m.

Sept. 9: @Versailles, 7:00 p.m.

Sept. 16: Eldon (Homecoming), 7:00 p.m.

Sept. 23: @Hallsville, 7:00 p.m.

Sept. 30: @Southern Boone, 7:00 p.m.

Oct. 7: Blair Oaks (Central Bank Tailgate), 7:00 p.m.

Oct. 14: Osage (Senior Night), 7:00 p.m.