CFB 6-week practice plan approved
On Thursday, the NCAA Division I Football Oversight Committee approved the long-discussed six-week preseason practice plan which will lead to coaches being allowed to work with their players.
All current on-campus workouts are voluntary, and they do not include coaching interaction while the normal required summer workouts, with coaches, will begin as early as July 6.
The start date will be determined by each respective team蘑菇视频 first game.
All three local Division I teams, Penn State, Pitt and West Virginia, open up Week 1 on Sept. 5 so their required workouts will begin July 13.
The teams who play Week 0 get to open mandatory practices a week earlier.
With the required workouts, student-athletes can spend six hours a week with the strength staff on weights and conditioning and they can spend another two on film study.
This period will be followed by enhanced summer training, a two-week stretch constituting the first portion of the proposed six-week preseason plan.
The enhanced period will allow student-athletes eight hours of strength training and film review per week, an hour walk-through practice each day and an hour of daily team meetings.
Players are not allowed to wear helmets or pads during the walk-throughs.
After the second week of preseason camp during the enhanced period, the normal four-week preseason camp will begin.
Obviously, another spike in the pandemic could cause certain states to go back to Phase I, and then the universities in those states will have to deal with it locally and not nationally.
Teams must have four weeks of preseason practice, and if a program has to suspend practices because of the virus, then its non-conference games could be in jeopardy.
This could cause schedule changes on the fly in some cases.
Both Pitt and Penn State open against teams from Ohio with the Panthers hosting Miami while Kent State heads to Happy Valley.
Hypothetically, if the virus were to send the state of Ohio back into Phase I in August, the Panthers and Nittany Lions would both be looking for a game.
Could they actually play each other? Hypothetically, yes. Would they? Doubtful.
What would programs do if there is an outbreak during the season?
The chances of that happening are likely and it will throw chaos into conference schedules if it does occur.
Add in the issue with how many fans will be allowed to attend the games and it is easy to see why things are so up in the air for the college football season.
There is still a chance that there won鈥檛 be a season at all, with one of the many reasons being based on the fact that testing procedures and guidelines vary by state and the NCAA cannot unilaterally rule for the season to start.
No one knows what the season is going to look like, and although many programs are preparing for a normal season, even the most optimistic advocates of the game have to have a sense of cautiousness when it comes to the 2020 campaign.
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