DUKE CENTER — Beyond the lines, of course, the scene is noticeably different.

Local high school football players, doing their best to follow the strict health and safety guidelines adopted by their schools over the summer — and not purposely jeopardize an already tenuous season — are keeping their distance off the field and more regularly washing their hands.

They’re making it a point to wipe down weight room equipment, to scrub down tackling dummies, shields and footballs after each session. Temperature checks have become as common as circuit training.

And, yes, teams have had to make considerable adjustments.

“A good plan was put forth, and we’ve stuck with that plan,” Otto-Eldred coach Troy Cook noted Monday, the first day Pennsylvania teams could be in pads following last week’s heat acclimation period, “it just kind of put us in a position, though, where we couldn’t get through the things that we would normally get through because we were constantly having to stop and clean bags off and things like that.”

Echoing that sentiment, Port Allegany coach Justin Bienkowski added: “We normally take attendance anyways, but now you just have to make sure you’re fulfilling the questions of sore throat, cough, fever, all that.”

BUT THOUGH things have changed procedurally, the look to those practices largely remained the same. At O-E, JV players worked on special teams at one end while the upperclassmen were engaging in a blocking drill at the other. At Port A, a masked Bienkowski could be seen talking mechanics with his quarterbacks.

Between the lines, it’s still football, still the sights and sounds you’d have seen on a late-August night in the pre-COVID-19 era. And given the continued uncertainty of, well, everything, the Big 30 teams south of the NY-PA border are merely happy to be in that position.

“Once we got on the field, it hasn’t been a lot different,” Bienkowski acknowledged. “We’re still playing football, practicing. Football-wise, nothing’s different. Just off the field, washing hands more and keeping spaced out more.”

Said Cook, “We’ve made the best of it. The guys came in with a really good attitude, we had great participation over the summer and guys are really looking forward to getting some work in now that we can go a little more.”

FOR PA football teams, especially, the unpredictability of 2020 has come with an emphatic underscore.

Port Allegany happened to hold its first spring practice on March 12, the same day the sports world as a whole came to a screeching halt. Bienkowski told his coaches and players that it might end up being the only night they had together, and it was.

In mid-June, after being given the go-ahead by the state, teams were allowed to start offseason activities contingent upon an approved health plan; Port was one of the first schools in the area to resurface on the athletics front.

Over the next six weeks, after being told as much, teams operated as if the season was going to be a go. In early-August, though, doubt crept back in as the PIAA implemented a kind of two-week purgatory as it debated a “recommendation” by the governor to postpone sports before ultimately deciding it best to move forward.

Over five months since the coronavirus first took hold, PA’s football fate wasn’t officially decided until Aug. 21. That was why there were so many smiles at Otto-Eldred and Port Allegany on Monday.

“We tried to keep it pretty much status quo for the players,” said Cook, when asked what that two-week delay was like for the Terrors. “For the coaches, we had to adjust a little bit with practice plans, things we might want to install, even drills that we wanted to do, because of the distancing and trying to keep players in pods.

“It was definitely different this year than others. I think we did a decent job with it; luckily now we’ve got the green light.”

THROUGHOUT that turbulent series of events, the Gators’ desire to be back on the field never waned. Given how long it had been since they could gather in any capacity, they mostly jumped at the chance to start training in June … and then again for the start of practice last Monday.

“We got together four nights a week on the field, in the weight room,” Bienkowski noted. “I told the coaches, I don’t know if we could be disappointed one bit with our summer participation. All our key guys were there. You can see mentally they know where to be, they know what coverage to be in, they know where to line up, they know what our bread and butter is.”

And despite those delays, and having to adhere to a number of safety protocols, those teams aren’t necessarily behind. Considering the regular season for Big 30 PA squads now doesn’t start until Sept. 18, they actually have more time than is typical to make up for anything that might have been lost in the uncertainty.

“I wouldn’t say we’re behind; we know we don’t have a game until the 18th, so we have plenty of time to get ready for it,” Cook noted. “We’ve basically just been playing it as we’re going to get everything in as quickly as we can and then the faster we get it in, the more time we have to rep it before the game.”

Mostly, teams such as O-E and Port Allegany have been playing it like this:

They’re both relieved and thankful that, as of today, their season hasn’t suffered the same fate as last spring’s, and they’re not still stuck in limbo the way New York and other neighboring states are.

Precautions or not, they’re cautiously thrilled to be between the lines again.

“We’re just going to keep preaching to the guys to not take anything for granted,” Cook said. “You don’t know when it could get shut down again, how many games we’ll get in, so if you’re waiting and you think you’re going to turn it on after Game 2 or 3, you might not make it that far.

“So we’re preaching to them everyday in practice, as these first games are going to start approaching in a couple weeks, don’t take anything for granted because you don’t know when it could get taken away again.”