The Cedartown Middle School football team has been hard at work preparing for the upcoming season. Jeff Collier, who coached the team last season, is back for year two.

“The boys have been working on the weights all summer,” Collier said. “We had been lifting a couple days a week up until (the week of Aug. 4). You can see the difference in most of them compared to last year.”

Collier said the team got off to a good start when they started practice earlier this month.

“We have a good group of eighth graders returning from last year and the seventh graders are pretty talented themselves,” Collier said. “I thought we got off to a pretty good start in practice. The intensity has been OK and we are still working on our execution but the numbers look good and the kids are willing to work hard and be coached.”

The young Bulldogs will be entering this season playing unfamiliar teams such as Dalton, Darlington and Oxford, Ala.

“Our season got off to a difficult start,” Collier said. “We were in the Carroll County Association last year but they decided to reorganize and that left us on the outside. We tried to get into the Floyd and Bartow Association but they turned us down.

“Our only other choice was to free lance a schedule and that is a difficult thing when all the schools around you are a part of something else.”

Cedartown kicks off the year in a Jamboree at Central-Carroll on Aug. 22-23. On Aug. 28 CMS travels to Oxford, Ala. for a game that will start at 4:30 p.m., EDT. On Sept. 4 CMS visits Dalton for a 4:30 p.m. game.

The Bulldogs get a week off before hosting Long Cane Middle School on Sept. 18 at 4 p.m. On Sept. 25 Cedartown hosts Gardner-Newman at 4:30 p.m.

Then the CMS schedule gets tricky, as they do not play again until Oct. 16 at home against the Dalton seventh-grade team at 4:30 p.m. On Oct. 30 CMS closes out the season at home against Darlington at 4:30 p.m.

“Our schedule is still tentative,” Collier reiterated. “We are still looking for opponents.”

The second-year coach did note that travel has halted some games.

“Our reasoning for not going further was strictly logistics,” he said. “At the middle school level, we simply can’t afford to go any further. When the dust cleared, we ended up with a partial schedule. We are still looking for games so if there is any one out there that can help out, please get in touch with Cedartown High Head Coach Mark Loudermilk, Cedartown Middle School Principal Ms. Cromer or myself.”

Despite the schedule difficulties Collier said the team is looking forward to this season.

“We are excited about another year at CMS,” Collier said. “I would personally like to invite the community to come out and support us. These kids work hard to represent Cedartown the best that they can and I hope the community comes out and shows them that they are proud of them.”