DEARBORN, Mich. — The clock reached midnight as Sunday ticked into Monday, and someone yelled, “It’s go time!” Football season could officially begin. New balls appeared, and players at Fordson High School prepared to do what had long been done in this hometown of Henry Ford: build something with assembly-line precision and reliability.

They were boys like other boys in countless towns, taught that football was important, but not as important as family and faith. Fordson High School’s enrollment is more than 90 percent Muslim, and this week of two-a-day practices coincides with Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, when adherents refrain from eating and drinking during daylight hours.

For a second consecutive season, Coach Fouad Zaban has moved these grueling double practices to late night, from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. This allows players to break their fast at sunset, drink liquids and eat a light meal, practice in the relative cool of what has been a baking summer, then eat again before sunrise.

“Honestly, it’s more a safety issue than a religious issue,” said Zaban, 41, who, like all of his assistant coaches and the school principal, played at Fordson High School, a Michigan power. “If kids were going to fast, and the majority are, it was much safer not to be outside in daylight in 90-degree weather for hours each day.”