Head Coach Jeff Lee and his staff are preparing the Dawson County High School football team for the upcoming season.

With play less than a month away, practices and camp will begin next week for the Tigers.

The days of practicing five times a day, or marathon practices, have come to an end. The Georgia High School Association has tightened its policy on when and how long practices can be held.

The legislation by the association is attributed to the number of heat related situations, including athletes that have died, that have occurred in Georgia.

Football practices will begin no earlier than Aug. 1.

The policy now states: "In the first five days, at least two days must have practices with players dressed in shorts, helmets, shoulder pads, mouthpieces and shoes only. The other three days may include practices that have players in full pads, but no more than two consecutive days of the first five days may have full pads in use. Coaches are not required to have any practices in full pads during the first five days of practice."

Dawson County will practice five times for two hours each session to reach its maximum total of 10 hours. Teams must also practice during weekdays with no weekend practices.

The Tigers will workout on Thursday and Friday and then come back Monday through Wednesday of the next week.

"I feel it will not really impact our players," Lee said. "Our guys are in pretty good shape with all the agilities, weights and conditioning we have done this summer. We are really going to use this time to put in all our schemes on both offense and defense."

He added: "We still have the heat to contend with and will follow the rules. If it gets too hot we will go inside."

Lee said he is excited to see what the season holds.

"We are excited to start. Our coaching staff will have most of our stuff [in] during the next two weeks and we will be ready to go," he said.

The Tigers will open the season with a preseason scrimmage on Aug. 17 at home against Towns County.

Dawson County will kickoff the regular season with a Region 7-AAA game at home on Aug. 24 against East Hall.

Both games will begin at 7:30 p.m.

Notes: The East Hall game was moved from Oct. 12 to Aug. 24. The Oct. 12 date will be open.