THOMASVILLE — Thomasville’s bye week has come, but head coach Jonathan DeLay isn’t giving his team any slack, starting with the terminology. Instead of a bye week, the Bulldogs refer to it as an open week to avoid any lack of effort. Thomasville used this week as an opportunity to accomplish five goals.

“Some goals I’m looking at is one, that we grow closer together as a team,” said DeLay. “Two, we’re trying to correct any mistakes we had from last Friday night. Three, build on the successes that we had from the previous Friday night and getting better at those. And then, it’s about getting healthy and developing depth.”

The Bulldogs came together several times this week, practicing the same as they would any game week, just without a game on Friday night. The team participated in team-building exercises and a Bulldog on Bulldog scrimmage before school.

Thomasville is coming off a bounce-back 42-23 win over Tift County. Now, they are looking forward to region play as they will take on Monroe on September 29. The motto heading into the games that determine playoff seeding is simple. Do right, dictate, finish. It doesn’t just apply to football. This is a message that DeLay preaches in everyday life.

“Everything we do we have to finish,” he said. “From the things that are not football related like eating breakfast, we want to finish. You pick up a honeybun off the table, you finish it because how you do anything is how you do everything. We have to do right everywhere, in school, out of school, on the practice field, film, whatever.”

As for region play, Thomasville is hoping their tough non-region schedule will help them as the season goes on.

“There are six really good teams in our region and every week you’re going to have to play your best football that week to be the team that has the opportunity to go 1-0,” DeLay said. “We played a tough non-region schedule and our hope is that that spills over into region play. I’m not okay with us losing those three games, but we did learn from those three losses and those two wins that there are certain things that we have to get better at and those are certain things that we have to do to win football games.”

The Bulldogs will be back in action against Monroe next week on September 29.