The Pike County Bulldogs football team is spending the summer hitting the weights and the field in preparation for the 2015 football season.

“Me and my coaching staff are really pleased where the guys are right now but we know we have a long way to go,” said Pike County head coach Fred Holland. “We are increasing our strength and our speed at the moment. Overall, I am really pleased.”

Coming off a 7-4 season a year ago, Holland plans on using this summer to prepare his players for a competitive 2015 season.

Pike County prepares during the week by taking the field to start their practice and closing out the day hitting the weights in hopes of getting stronger as a football team.

“It has been going pretty good,” Holland said. “We have a had a good turnout so far. We still have some guys that are not showing up, but overall it’s going pretty good.”

The Bulldogs spend the majority of their time at practice in the weight room; however, on Monday, they hit the field to work on drills, their footwork and agility.

“We have been doing a lot of footwork as well as cone work,” Holland said. “We are trying to improve our skills. We do skill development work, and that is something that has helped us in the past so we are going to continue to do that.”

Lack of depth is something that a lot of teams will have to deal with this fall, but Pike County’s lack of depth on both sides of the ball will require many players to play both offense and defense.

“We don’t have the luxury of a having a real big team, so we are doing some endurance things to increase our strength.” Holland said.

After losing several key players to graduation, Pike County has been tasked with filling big shoes and increasing the team’s depth will be focal point for Holland heading into the fall. While summer practice has been going on for a month, Holland said he would continue to use the summer practices to see whom he will be able to use on both offense and defense come the kickoff of football season.

“We are going to try and increase our depth on both the offense and defensive line,” Hubbard said. “We are going to work on getting more experience. That is something we are trying to increase every year.”

Although a lot of teams will dedicate a portion of their summer program to seven-on-seven drills and tournaments, the Bulldogs will use the summer to work on things they deemed to be important in efforts to make them a better football team.

“We haven’t done much of that,” Holland said. “We are focused on getting better as a football team. We have done a lot more of seven-on-seven drills and tournaments in the past, but if we could just develop our players more, in terms of intelligence, we will be fine.”

Pike County will open their 2015 schedule in a preseason game on August 21 against Charles Henderson.