First of all, I recommend reading the SI story by Ross Dellenger from yesterday about what's going to be necessary from a summer training standpoint
My first reaction to this is "if this is what's necessary, maybe we shouldn't really be doing this yet." And I don't say that to mean oh no, I'm terrified, we can't ever have society again. I just mean if this is the level of precaution that's necessary (and I'm not sure it is) at what point is it too much to do right now? But we'll see. It's still only May 19th.
The NCAA advisory committee is going to rule on Wednesday whether to lift the campus ban nationwide. They could rule to lift it, they could rule to extend it, they could basically rule to do nothing. The SEC then has a call on Friday afternoon (FWIW, I know the Big Ten has a similar call on June 7). If the NCAA lifts the campus ban, the SEC is going to vote on when to bring athletes back. It is worth noting here that we're only talking about football and men's and women's basketball. These are the only sports that have anything other than 100% voluntary summer activity on campus (and really only football is imminently important as the others are not under the same time crunch). It is widely expected that the SEC would vote to start bringing players back. Whether that's on June 1 or June 15 or some time in between is unknown at this point. Also, in talking to people, a consideration is bringing players back in waves. I've talked to someone at Mizzou about this and also talked to people that cover two other schools and the thought is you bring some players back, then after a week you bring some more, etc, until you hopefully have your full roster on campus by July 15.
It is important to note here what's already been happening at Mizzou: I am told they have probably 40 to 50 athletes a day (across all sports) going through to get treatment, pick up to go meals, etc. They can't work out but they are in the facility for various (allowed) reasons. Every one already has his or her temperature taken upon entering the building. I was told there have been instances of athletes being turned away (they did not end up having the virus, but it was a precautionary situation where symptoms gave the staff pause and they told the individual not to come in). If an athlete leaves town and comes back, they are quarantined and not allowed in the facility for 3-5 days depending on where they went (is it a "hot spot?"). So the ability to reintroduce football players is not something that would be considered a major hurdle over what's been done already.
If football players come back and can begin to work out, the way it looks is going to be different. Not just in terms of testing and precautions, but in terms of numbers. You're going to be limited in how many kids can work out at once. So rather than three groups of 35 players, you might have nine groups of 12 players. What that means is rather than a 3-4 hour process to get everyone's work in, you're talking about a 12 hour day. One group lifts at 6 am (for example). As soon as they're done, everything is wiped down and disinfected before the next group comes in. Then you do that however many times are necessary throughout the day. It takes some time. A hypothetical schedule would be that you have four groups lift on MWF, four lift on TRS, then on the opposite days they're doing cardio/conditioning in small groups. It's a long day six days a week for the personnel involved.
Another arm of this is summer classes. Neal McCready from our Ole Miss site posted on their board that athletes who are on track for eligibility and graduation will not have summer classes covered by the University. I checked at Mizzou and the same is basically true here. Now, I was told they're working with individuals and everything is being handled on a case by case basis, but the basic framework is that if a kid is on track to graduate and is taking a class which he could take at another time and his graduation date/eligibility would not be affected by taking that class at the other time, it will not be paid for him to take it in the summer. Summer classes have often been used by athletes to "get ahead." That might not be as feasible this year. If a kid has a class that would allow him to graduate in December rather than May by taking it in the summer he can. If the course isn't offered at another time he can. If he needs the class to be eligible this fall, he can take it. So it's not "they aren't paying for summer school" but there will definitely be instances where an athlete is told the school isn't going to pay for him to take a certain class this summer.
I expect there to be some sort of release on Friday following the call with the SEC presidents and chancellors. Whatever the SEC does, I believe it will be a unified decision. We'll keep you posted on what we get from that.
That's all the immediately important stuff that I can think of. There are plenty of other questions going into the fall, but before any of those even matter, we've got to get the kids back on campus and start building toward a season. None of this is perfect. There are no good solutions. Opinions will be all over the place, regardless of what happens. At this point, I'll keep my personal thoughts out of it until we see what actually DOES happen. I hope they play college football safely, on time, in front of fans. A lot of other people hope that too. It's going to take an incredible amount of work, cooperation and some good fortune to make it happen.
I posted this for informational purposes. I hope people will at least read it before resuming the regular peeing match.
My first reaction to this is "if this is what's necessary, maybe we shouldn't really be doing this yet." And I don't say that to mean oh no, I'm terrified, we can't ever have society again. I just mean if this is the level of precaution that's necessary (and I'm not sure it is) at what point is it too much to do right now? But we'll see. It's still only May 19th.
The NCAA advisory committee is going to rule on Wednesday whether to lift the campus ban nationwide. They could rule to lift it, they could rule to extend it, they could basically rule to do nothing. The SEC then has a call on Friday afternoon (FWIW, I know the Big Ten has a similar call on June 7). If the NCAA lifts the campus ban, the SEC is going to vote on when to bring athletes back. It is worth noting here that we're only talking about football and men's and women's basketball. These are the only sports that have anything other than 100% voluntary summer activity on campus (and really only football is imminently important as the others are not under the same time crunch). It is widely expected that the SEC would vote to start bringing players back. Whether that's on June 1 or June 15 or some time in between is unknown at this point. Also, in talking to people, a consideration is bringing players back in waves. I've talked to someone at Mizzou about this and also talked to people that cover two other schools and the thought is you bring some players back, then after a week you bring some more, etc, until you hopefully have your full roster on campus by July 15.
It is important to note here what's already been happening at Mizzou: I am told they have probably 40 to 50 athletes a day (across all sports) going through to get treatment, pick up to go meals, etc. They can't work out but they are in the facility for various (allowed) reasons. Every one already has his or her temperature taken upon entering the building. I was told there have been instances of athletes being turned away (they did not end up having the virus, but it was a precautionary situation where symptoms gave the staff pause and they told the individual not to come in). If an athlete leaves town and comes back, they are quarantined and not allowed in the facility for 3-5 days depending on where they went (is it a "hot spot?"). So the ability to reintroduce football players is not something that would be considered a major hurdle over what's been done already.
If football players come back and can begin to work out, the way it looks is going to be different. Not just in terms of testing and precautions, but in terms of numbers. You're going to be limited in how many kids can work out at once. So rather than three groups of 35 players, you might have nine groups of 12 players. What that means is rather than a 3-4 hour process to get everyone's work in, you're talking about a 12 hour day. One group lifts at 6 am (for example). As soon as they're done, everything is wiped down and disinfected before the next group comes in. Then you do that however many times are necessary throughout the day. It takes some time. A hypothetical schedule would be that you have four groups lift on MWF, four lift on TRS, then on the opposite days they're doing cardio/conditioning in small groups. It's a long day six days a week for the personnel involved.
Another arm of this is summer classes. Neal McCready from our Ole Miss site posted on their board that athletes who are on track for eligibility and graduation will not have summer classes covered by the University. I checked at Mizzou and the same is basically true here. Now, I was told they're working with individuals and everything is being handled on a case by case basis, but the basic framework is that if a kid is on track to graduate and is taking a class which he could take at another time and his graduation date/eligibility would not be affected by taking that class at the other time, it will not be paid for him to take it in the summer. Summer classes have often been used by athletes to "get ahead." That might not be as feasible this year. If a kid has a class that would allow him to graduate in December rather than May by taking it in the summer he can. If the course isn't offered at another time he can. If he needs the class to be eligible this fall, he can take it. So it's not "they aren't paying for summer school" but there will definitely be instances where an athlete is told the school isn't going to pay for him to take a certain class this summer.
I expect there to be some sort of release on Friday following the call with the SEC presidents and chancellors. Whatever the SEC does, I believe it will be a unified decision. We'll keep you posted on what we get from that.
That's all the immediately important stuff that I can think of. There are plenty of other questions going into the fall, but before any of those even matter, we've got to get the kids back on campus and start building toward a season. None of this is perfect. There are no good solutions. Opinions will be all over the place, regardless of what happens. At this point, I'll keep my personal thoughts out of it until we see what actually DOES happen. I hope they play college football safely, on time, in front of fans. A lot of other people hope that too. It's going to take an incredible amount of work, cooperation and some good fortune to make it happen.
I posted this for informational purposes. I hope people will at least read it before resuming the regular peeing match.
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