Welcome to Sabine Pass’ Week 1 of high school football.

Homecoming activities may remind the Sharks otherwise this is actually Week 7.

“We’re not going to be in game shape,” coach Jason Thibodeaux said. “Burkeville has played [three] games. They’ll be in game mode. This will be our first game and it’s homecoming, and there will be pressure on the kids to come out and do well.”

Sabine Pass has waited until this week to play, trying to get its team of 21 ready for District 12-2A Division II play as they recover from Tropical Storm Harvey. When classes resumed Sept. 11, games against Pasadena First Baptist and Galveston O’Connell had already been washed out. Sept. 15 was an off-date and a Sept. 21 game was called off because Deweyville no longer fielded a junior varsity team, which was to be the opponent.

With some players still displaced by Harvey, Thibodeaux had 15 available nine days before the Sept. 29 game against West Hardin. That game was canceled because some of the Sharks had joined the team late and did not go through the mandatory 10 days of acclimation to compete.

Although Thibodeaux has seen a small uptick on his roster from preseason camp, he’s averaged 16 players at practice in the past 1½ weeks, he said.

“We had 21, but for various reasons, we’ve always had kids have to go home or couldn’t practice,” Thibodeaux said.

It’s not uncommon for Sabine Pass, a school of about 150 in grades 9-12, to struggle in drawing numbers for its football program, which had gone 33 years without a winning season until last year. That 6-5 team grew from 14 players at the start of camp to 28 at the end of the season.

The 2016 Sharks won five straight games after opening with a loss. This team has yet to be tested.

“We do it every year. A lot of times we don’t have all our kids a practice. We don’t really game-plan until we know who shows up,” Thibodeaux said. “We change our gameplan our practice plan accordingly. We’ve done a lot of half-line drills this year [where one or both sides of the ball don’t have all 11 players].”

Ten players on Sabine Pass’ roster are freshmen, so Thibodeaux is counting on skill players like running back Grayson Johnson and wide receiver Jeann Zuniga to contribute early in their careers. Two-way lineman Kirk Blood and offensive lineman/linebacker Logan Odom give the Sharks some leadership, with fellow junior Austin Smith looking to split time between quarterback and running back.

Thibodeaux is not worried about team attrition when the season begins. He’s more concerned about beginning the season against a Burkeville team that’s played three games, but is 0-3.

“Mainly execution and knocking off the rust from practicing for so long and not being under the lines with fans in stands and the bands playing. The pressure of, we’ve got to get this first down or get this handoff, or we’ve got to block correctly. Teams are 5 or 6 games in, and it’s our first game. It’s the same old jitters, same old worries every coach would do. … I know we’re going to have the hiccups. That just goes with the territory.”
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I.C. Murrell: 549-8541. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews