By the end of the weekend, everyone will be in training camp. (Other than the NESCAC schools, which do almost nothing footballwise in a normal way.)

Coaches deal with camp in different ways. Some turn their phone off entirely and don’t respond to anything. I played phone tag with one coach recently the day before his camp started and he was meeting with a Marine recruiter, among other things, then letting his staff knock off after lunch.

Last free time for three months, after all.

For many freshmen, it’s a reality check. No matter how much it’s stressed otherwise, some players and high school coaches think of Division III football as an extension of high school — something familiar that they’ve already prepared for and instinctively know how to handle. But this isn’t the case. How else do you explain the number of freshmen football players who don’t even make it to the first day of classes?

We got a feedback form from someone purporting to be working on a high school project. It read as follows:

Subject: question for high school project
Notes: how many full pad practices can a team have in college in a day

Now, if this was for a high school project, it must be postgraduate work, because the form was sent by a reader on a Division III campus. It appears some player wasn’t ready for a particular coach’s camp.

I recommended he not raise this matter with his coach.

So while coaches are in their bunkers and players are in their dorm rooms, we’re sitting here on the outside counting down the final two weeks until the 2007 season starts.

Camp memories, anyone?