With college football spring practice canceled, here’s how teams are staying connected
College football coaches aren’t letting a global pandemic get in the way of preparing for the 2020 season.
With social distancing now a normal way of life thanks to the coronavirus, coaches have been trying to find creative ways to make sure their athletes remain sharp physically and mentally.
The normal rules and hardcore routines no longer apply, so coaches such as Alabama’s Nick Saban have turned to technology to assist them.
“We usually use the morning to work on next year’s opponents, which is not specifically what we’d be doing this time of year with spring practice going on,” Saban said in a teleconference with reporters on Thursday, according to BamaInsider.
You see, Saban and others have found a way around the social distancing barrier and use the video communication applications like Zoom to conduct meetings with staff and athletes.
“In the afternoons, I try to do as much as we can to keep in contact with recruits. ... On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday right now we’re doing sessions with our players. I do video conferences and phone calls with recruits during the afternoon. That’s pretty much what a day is like, and we’re doing the best we can.”
At this point, everything is up in the air because of COVID-19, so the upcoming college football season is one massive, lingering question mark.
Coaching staffs and athletes, who are used to maintaining strict routines during spring practice, have to embrace technology as a way to stay in shape — physically and mentally.
The SEC is allowing teams to hold virtual meetings with players, but for only two hours a week. And there’s only so much a coach can do during those calls, so Saban tends to focus on play installations.
As we continue our fight to combat coronavirus and face the reality that this way of life may be the brand new normal, questions such as if college football season will kick off on time — or at all — will continue to linger.
And if it is still a go, athletes need to spend the dog days of summer prepping for the fall load. Saban has an idea on how that could work if times are still trying during that period.
“If there was some kind of way where we could have 14 days of teaching with players some time before fall camp happens, I think that would probably be beneficial,” he said. “Historically we’re not allowed to work with our players at that time, and this would be hypothetical that in some time in the summer we would be able to get our players back here and we could be able to work with them.”
And no, he’s not thinking about breaking social distancing rules.
“I’m not talking about having pads on or anything, but just being able to teach. Teach system, teach scheme. We’ll have to evaluate the players based on fall camp,” he said.
Like Saban, coaches around the nation are getting creative with their now limited methods of communication with student athletes and are basically throwing out the old playbook. Coaching staffs have been taking into consideration that all their athletes don’t have access to personal home gyms, so they’ve been mixing it up.
North Carolina’s strength staff has been creating workout programs that are more tailored to common household items that can be used in place of gym equipment.
“Instead of a dumbbell squat, we’re giving them direction on how to fill a duffle bag with sand or books or anything that they have to give it some weight,” North Carolina head strength coach Brian Hess told Sports Illustrated. “So now we’ll do a goblet squat. It’s the same movement, but now we’re loading it with anything we can put together at home.”
And it gets more innovative from there.
Washington State has been holding online push-up parties along with other workout challenges that are beneficial and fun, USA Today reported.
South Florida strength coaches are using Instagram to their advantage by filming a workout during the daytime hours and posting it nightly to a private page where only players can access it first thing in the morning the next day and follow it, according to USA Today.
All these virtual workouts and drills appear to be working out well with coaching staffs and athletes, but we won’t know if it has paid off until months from now.
This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 8:23 AM with the headline "With college football spring practice canceled, here’s how teams are staying connected."