It's business as usual for the Cochrane High Cobras football team as they end their first week of spring training in preparation to defend their tier 3 provincial championship.

The high school's field was a flurry of action, June 8. After the team warmups, the players were broken into their units for specific drills and this particular day they were holding their first 12-on-12 scrimmage.

Ask any of their veteran coaches and they'll tell you continuity has been a key factor in the Cobras winning 14 provincial championships and leading tier 3 southern Alberta schools with 59 selections to the South's Senior Bowl team.

"The level of coaching here no other team has," says co-coach Bruce O'Neil, who has been with the team 25 years and largely focuses on the team's defence. "You watch most high schools and you won't see this."

The Cobras have vast experience in their coaching ranks and co-head coaches Rob McNab and O'Neil make sure they get ownership through key roles within the ranks.

Sixty-two players have reported to training camp and that will be whittled down to 45-50 players, a number the team is comfortable carrying into the fall season. That means the coaching staff will have to decide who to keep and they don't take it lightly.

"It doesn't matter if you can play in grade 10," says O'Neil. "It's whether you can play in grade 12. So we have to make a call on that sometimes."

Regardless of whether you're a grade 10 rookie or grade 12 veteran, you will hear the same message at camp. The practices are run like clockwork and all participants are expected to give their best.

So, too, is the system incorporated to nurture and develop skills in the younger players until they earn their spot in the starting lineup.

The Cobras are heading into their first of two jamborees, June 10, in Lacombe. They close out the camp with a jamboree the following Saturday at Okotoks. The team regularly seek out higher tiered teams for exhibition play and it's not uncommon for them to test their players against tier one and two teams.

The jamborees are controlled scrimmages but even there the Cobras attempt to make best use of their time and squeeze in as many plays as possible. They don't spend the field time working through the play; they execute them. 

"We're practised well enough that we can call the play and, boom, away we go. And then we call another play."

All tried and true practises that will once again make the Cobras a threat to all comers in the fall.