With the summer workout time period nearing an end for the Escambia Academy Cougars, head coach Hugh Fountain is seeing some good things, but he is ready to get on the field.

“I think things are going fine for us this summer,” Fountain said Wednesday. “We are kind of winding down here on these summer workouts. We have about two-and-a-half more weeks with that and then we will be back to start practicing. I have been pleased with what I have seen in the weight room from our work. I am sort of the type that I want to get them on the field and see what they have improved on and how they have improved physically from where they were at in May. But I have been pretty pleased with them.”

Fountain said the main thing in his first summer this season has been to get stronger in the weight room.

“I told the kids this yesterday when we were in there lifting weights, that our goal here was to get better in the weight room in these last few weeks and to get better on our individual skills,” he said. “Also, I told them in these next few weeks that we will start working hard on getting better as a football team. Where we are at now is we are just trying to get them individually better and improve their skill levels and their strength levels at this time.”

While he has seen good things in the weight room this summer that could lead to a successful inaugural 2012 season for Fountain, he said there are other factors that determine how the upcoming fall season will go for the Cougars.

“At this point and time I really don’t know for a lot of different reasons,” Fountain said. “First, I learned a lot about them in the spring, but personally I have not focused on the teams in our league. It is a different league from what I have been coaching as far as the coaches and their style of play and things like that. So it is going to be a learning experience for me and it will be a learning experience for the kids. We are excited about the season, but the biggest problem for us is that we are going to be a work-in-progress for this season.”

Another factor to the 2012 season for EA is the early season schedule.

“For us, when you look at our season, it is going to start out important for us because those first three games are major players in our region,” Fountain said. “So, what we don’t have the luxury to do is, take the whole season to get better. We are going to have to get better at the beginning of the season. So that is going to be one of our main goals…to be way more improved from the spring by our first game because of the impact of those early season games for us.”

Here is the 2012 schedule for Escambia Academy:

•  Friday, Aug. 24, Fort Dale, Home

• Friday, Aug. 31, Hooper, Away

• Friday, Sept. 7, Monroe, Home

• Friday, Sept. 14, Sparta, Away

• Friday, Sept. 21, Morgan, Away

• Friday, Sept. 28, Pike Liberal, Home

• Friday, Oct. 5, South Choctaw, Away

• Friday, Oct. 12, Clarke Prep, Home

• Friday, Oct. 19, Southern, Homecoming

• Friday, Oct. 26, Macon-East, Away

• Friday, Nov. 2, First round playoffs, TBA

• Friday, Nov. 9, Semi-finals, TBA

• Friday, Nov. 16, Championship, Troy University