CARBONDALE — The Carbondale Terriers should be preparing to open South 7 Conference play Friday night against Centralia. The Terriers are practicing, but a date with Centralia will have to wait until the spring.

With football moved to the spring, the IHSA has allowed 20 contact days between September 7 and October 31. Having lost most of their summer contact days due to safety concerns, Bryan Lee’s team is taking full advantage of practice time.

Lee has an advantage many teams do not–experience. The Terriers return 18 starters from last year’s team that finished 8-2, won a share of the conference title, and made the playoffs for the second straight season. According to Lee, the experience has paid off big time already, just in the team’s ability to adapt to ever-changing circumstances.

Carbondale is finding putting a schedule together within the intra-conference and intra-COVID region guidelines to be difficult. While frustrating, Lee is not real upset because it means there are potentially games to play.