Saints’ Jacob Collazo excited for first day of ‘real football,’ upcoming season

Monday morning couldn’t come fast enough for Jacob Collazo and thousands of other high school football players across the state.

It was a milestone moment on the football calendar, the first day of the PIAA’s mandated heat acclimatization period.

Heat-Ac week doesn’t sound very exciting to outsiders but to young football players who have been training for this moment for eight months it’s like Christmas Day and Thanksgiving all rolled into one.

“This is what everybody looks forward to,” said Collazo, a senior lineman at Berks Catholic. “This is like the first ‘real’ week of football.”

High school football season never really ends. A week or two after the last game of the season, dedicated players are back in the weight room adding muscle and mass and working on their speed and agility.

Come spring there are voluntary team practices, and camps and college showcases to attend. In June and July there are team camps and 7-on-7 competitions.

Training for football is 24/7 for the top players but the difference is that Monday, just as the sun was rising, Collazo and his teammates — like players all across the commonwealth — were putting on shoulder pads and helmets for the first time since their seasons ended in November (or for some of the elite teams in December).

“Throwing my shoulder pads and helmet on for the first time since last season really gets you back realizing the season’s coming up,” said Collazo, an all-league defensive tackle last year. “The first day of pads is always great. It’s the first day we have to be here.”

The season begins Friday, Aug. 26. Berks Catholic will open at home against Loyalsock. It will play its first game as a member of Section 4 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League four weeks later — against rival Wyomissing, no less.

Offseason workouts are “voluntary,” though players who seek to earn a starting spot know they can’t miss too many days. Monday it was mandatory to be there; for the Saints that meant waking up around 5 and being on the field by 6.

“It’s great to see all of us come together,” Collazo said. “We’re going through offense (and) defense today. Getting back to normal, the way it used to be before COVID. We weren’t out here doing it this like this (the past couple years). It’s good to see everything coming back.”

PIAA guidelines for Heat-Ac Week call for five straight days of workouts, each a minimum of three hours, with two sessions totalling five hours on Days 2 and 4. Those multi-session days must include a two-hour recovery period between sessions.

Players can not work out in full gear nor participate in full-contact sessions until Aug. 15, and not until they’ve gone through five Heat-Ac training days.

The rules were put into place in 2013 for health and safety reasons.

You can bet there were a lot of restless football players Sunday night, unable to sleep because they were so anxious to grab their helmet and get out on the field.

“The last couple days I was really getting into it, realizing that it’s time to go,” Collazo said, “time to make sure everything’s good.”

Collazo’s been “getting into it” for months now. He wasn’t happy with himself last season, when he said he was often “huffing and puffing” in the fourth quarter of games. He carried 340 pounds on his 6-3 frame making it tough for opponents to move him — but also tough to get up and down the stairs at home.

He played full-time on defense but wasn’t able to offer much time on offense.

He was determined to become a better football player and started watching what and how much he ate. In a couple months of dieting he dropped 80 pounds — that’s like half of a running back.

“I began eating smaller proportions over a longer period of time,” he said. “Instead of eating six meals a day, I just do breakfast, lunch and dinner. I cut out everything with a high amount of sugar. Now I eat mostly chicken and pasta. Instead of getting a rootbeer float when we go out to eat, I have water. After a while you don’t realize you’re trying to cut things out. It becomes part of your routine.”

Since February, when his weight dipped to 260, Collazo has added 20 pounds by continuing to eat healthy foods and working out every day. He’s still able to squat 505 pounds (though his bench max is down a little from last year’s high of 310).

His wardrobe has changed a couple of times in the last year. He now wears an extra-large shirt, down from 4X. His belt size has shrunk from 48 to 40.

“I felt I needed more speed, needed more power,” he said. “I needed to be able to move better. Now, it’s different (running around out here); it feels good.”