On Monday, the Florala Wildcats football team dusted off what was left over from the summer workout program to focus on what lies ahead at fall practice.

After spending time in the workout room, the Wildcats started practice in the afternoons, where they will primarily concentrate on special teams.

The team will work on special teams until Wednesday. After Wednesday, Florala will start running offensive and defensive plays.

Florala coach Stan Gooden said he thinks his team is pretty “close” to being where they need to be after the conclusion of summer workouts.

“I think we’re pretty close,” Gooden said. “We’re not where we want to be. Last Thursday at the 7-on-7, I think our first group we had out, as far as in-shape wise, I think they were pretty close to where we need to be at this point.

“I could tell we got a little tired in our fourth game that we played, but most of those guys were playing both offense and defense and they didn’t ever leave the field,” he said. “That’s going to be a major factor for us, is our conditioning. We’re just going to have to be in better shape against the folks that we are going to play because we’re going to have so many guys going both ways.”

Temperatures this week are expected to reach in the mid-90s.

Gooden said every precaution will be made to make sure the players are safe.

“(Monday) morning was more of a learning period,” he said about teaching players on heat safety. “It was more relaxed and laid back — teaching the guys what we want them to do as far as the special teams in the kickoff. That’s what we mainly covered (Monday).

“(Monday) afternoon we’ll have practice scheduled for three hours, but in that time period, we’ll have 30 minutes of breaks,” he said. “So, over two hours of practice and 30 minutes of breaks. It’s going to run long the first couple of days, but we’re going to make sure our guys have plenty of water and we’ll watch them to see how they’re doing.”

Gooden said going into the week, the players’ attitudes have been positive about finally practicing for the fall.

“Our attitude was really good (Monday) and I hope they come back with that same attitude (today) and the rest of the week,” Gooden said. “The guys are ready to go ahead and put their pads on and that’ll be Thursday afternoon. So, we’ll see how our attitudes are this Thursday.”