A little “rough around the edges.”

That’s how Pleasant Home coach Robert Bradford describes his football team after nine days of practice.

“We’re really young this year in trying to get everybody together on the same page, and trying to get everybody polished up — it’s just everything right now is really rough around the edges,” he said.

The Eagles started fall practice Aug. 2, and since then, temperatures have been in the upper 90s, and the heat index has reached the lower 100s.

Bradford said practice has been “tough” on the weather front, and the other day he read that schools in Tennessee stopped practicing due to the heat.

“I’m thinking if it’s so hot in Tennessee, how hot is it in Andalusia?” he said. “It has been really tough.

“You’ve got to start and stop a lot more,” he said. “You’ve got to give them a lot more water because it’s so hot, and to make sure to keep them cool. I think our kids have done really well with it. We haven’t slowed down any because of the heat.”

Bradford said the players haven’t had a problem with the heat.

“We tell the kids that whenever we’re doing a drill, they’ve got to do it with intensity and what’s required of them,” he said. “We tell them that when they feel themselves dragging just let us know, and we’ll give them a quick water break and go right back to practicing again.”

Pleasant Home’s season will start in eight days in a kick off classic game against Red Level.

So far, Bradford said the bright spot at practice has been the “offensive line.”

“That’s about the only place that we’re battle tested,” Bradford said. “We’ve got four of our starting five offensive line back from last year. They’re really the anchor of our team. “But, those linemen were the leaders on the team,” he said. “They’re doing a great job of setting the intensity every day.”

As far as the negatives, Bradford said a lot of the players have “banged up” injuries, which are common when the team goes at it the way they do.

“The not so bright spot is just that we’ve been going at it really good, and we have several of the players banged up — normal beginning of the season stuff,” he said. “They’re really going after it. We’re testing them and seeing who has what. When you do that, you have kids that will legitimately get banged up.”