Bulldogs ready to get the football season started

BEDFORD – There might not be much room to maneuver Wednesday morning when the Bedford High School football team takes the field for the first time.

High school football begins for every team around New Hampshire, and this year’s opening practice will be like any other for Bulldogs coach Kurt Hines.

“This has been a good summer,” he said. “We have roughly 120 kids signed up, freshmen through seniors. An ideal number would be 90, but we’ll take 120 over 60. It’s a good challenge to have, and we’ll find out how many of those kids are football players and how many just want to show up for the team.”

A year ago, Bedford ended the season with 84 players. Hines remembers one year, when he was an assistant at Goffstown, there were less than 60 kids, and during his seven years at Souhegan, anywhere between 80 and 90 came out each year.

Even with the large number of players, Hines expects the Bulldogs to start strong from the first practice.

“We expect to hit the ground running,” he said. “With the weight training, we’ve averaged about 57 kids, three days a week. We had a number of kids go to other training camps, college camps. We’re expecting the kids to come back and show us what they’ve learned over the summer.”

Last season, Bedford started the season by winning its first five games, including a 4-0 start in Division III. But the Bulldogs final four games were against the four teams that eventually made the playoffs; Bedford lost all four.

After finishing with the program’s first winning record, the players want more, and they’re not the only ones wanting it.

“A lot of people in the community are excited for this football season,” Bedford senior Jordan Garron said. “Everyone in the senior class, we’re really trying to end with a bang. A lot of people have been going to camps, and I’d like to see us working as hard as we can throughout the season. I expect a lot.”

Hines does as well. Just don’t expect him to learn everyone’s name by the time Wednesday’s double sessions are done.