SIKESTON -- As the temperature rises, sports enthusiasts begin to think -- of what lies ahead in the fall cooler weather.

Sikeston head football coach Kent Gibbs is such an enthusiast, as he is taking all measures to have his squad well-prepared for the 2008 season.

Gibbs, the president of the SEMO Football Coaches Association, has been working hard on bringing a football camp to the area for high school players and has landed one this summer at Sikeston High School.

"Basically, so many college camps are $250, and this is a way now that schools can host their own camps through different associations," he said.

This camp is actually being hosted by the SEMO Football Coaches Association and the Sikeston facility is the host. "So, instead of paying $250 to watch your kids for a couple of days at a college camp, what they pay here is $30 and we bring them in and give them about three or four games a night, for two nights, and they go away with that experience of playing. Hopefully we're doing something that will benefit each other's programs."

The camp, scheduled to begin Friday afternoon, will consist of offensive and defensive drills for all eight teams that will be participating -- Caruthersville, Chaffee, Dexter, East Prairie, Jackson, New Madrid County Central, Perryville and the host, Sikeston.

"On Friday night, we'll have three possessions," said Gibbs. "We'll have eight plays each from the 40-yard line, four from the 20-yard line and four from the 10-yard line. We'll just swap and each school will get a chance to do that. At the end of each varsity scrimmage, we'll play a JV round where each team will get eight plays on offense and eight on defense."

Friday night will be for working on offensive and defensive sets and Saturday night will be the chance for the teams to see their progress.

"Saturday night is just like a jamboree," said Gibbs. We ll have two 15-minute halves and we'll have one team on offense and one team on defense. It's a running clock and (the teams) will get somewhere between 12 to 15 plays, and we'll take a little bit of a break and come back and run the next half. It's a good way to get in about a quarter of football in each half."

Gibbs said that the involvement in the football program this year has been positive and that he expects over 50 kids in the camp.

"We've had somewhere around 50 kids, and we're expecting somewhere between 50 and 55 kids," he said. "I think most of the other teams, you can expect anywhere from 30 to 40 kids. I know Jackson is bringing down 60, and they're actually going to have two teams in the scrimmage. We're looking to have somewhere around 320 kids total."

Gibbs said that all of the coaches within the SEMO Football Coaches Association were on board with the idea and that they think it will help each other's programs.

"It's an exciting time because so many sports have camps where kids go away to camps and football has been behind the time, particularly in Southeast Missouri," he said. "We're excited about being able to have the camp. It's a relatively new thing that started over in the Kansas City area, but there's a big one this year at St. Francis Borgia and there's one at Farmington."

The Bulldogs will be having their regular camp as well, beginning on Monday afternoon and running through Thursday afternoon. The camp begins at 2:45 p.m. and the squad will be getting prepared for the full camp on Friday and Saturday.

"We re hoping to get a little bit of experience through our camp, then we'll have the full camp on Friday and Saturday," Gibbs added. "Through our camp, we'll try to install offense and defense and teach basic techniques. We'll try to do a little bit of conditioning to kind of start getting the kids in that mode. Hopefully, we'll have them ready to go for Friday and Saturday."

The Bulldogs will also try to go to two different seven-on-seven camps this summer, one at East Prairie (June 23) and one at SEMO (June 28). They will be having another full week of camp beginning July 21. The first week of practice for the fall season is set for Aug. 11.