ELMIRA, N.Y. (WENY) - The first official high school football practices in the Southern Tier are just under two weeks away. WENY Sports continues to talk to local coaches about the opportunities they're providing the student-athletes to be prepared for the season, and it's brought to you by Alfred State College.

Elmira Head Coach, Jimmy McCauley says the Express have been working to improve for months since last season ended. He says the team has been lifting weights since January with after-school weight training. They also had some non-padded practices in the spring.

McCauley discussed the benefits of their summer workouts and emphasized that nothing changes, and they're always focused once the fall season arrives.

"Once school is over, we go to our summer schedule which is about three days a week, and we get them up here we kind of try to get our bang for our buck. We lift them, we run them, and we do some football at the same time so it's about two, two and a half hours three days a week" said McCauley. "One purpose is to get these guys acclimated to the weather, but also try to increase their knowledge of football."

"One year goes into the next, those juniors have a couple of months off then it's lifting for them. On that August 22nd date, everybody gets a little excited, the blood flowing but for us, it's business as usual. We're trying to get better every single day" he added.

Elmira is scheduled to open the 2022 regular season on Friday, September 9th when they host Ithaca at 7:00 PM.