On Wednesday, the NCAA Division I Council approved a six-week practice plan for football that begins in July and will transition teams from the current voluntary workouts amid the coronavirus pandemic to the typical mandatory meetings and preseason camps to prepare for the 2020 season.
Liberty head football coach Hugh Freeze met with the media on Thursday to discuss how this plan and the coronavirus is impacting his football team.
“It’s continued to be a very different time,” said Freeze. “It’s one I think we’ve all kind of accepted that it’s going to be different, and we still don’t know exactly to the extent of what different is going to be, in particular when we get back to trying to practice and play games.”
Liberty student-athletes began to return to campus for voluntary workouts on June 1, and summer classes began this past Monday as newcomers and returns for the football and men’s and women’s basketball teams returned to Lynchburg.
“We’re out of shape,” Freeze said of his team. “We’re not the only ones, I’m sure, but they missed a whole spring of training with our strength staff. We’ve got some catch up to do for sure. The period we’re in right now is voluntary, but I’ve been pleased that a large percentage of our kids are very committed to being there.”
Liberty is scheduled to open the 2020 season on Sept. 5 against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. The NCAA’s approved practice plan will allow the Flames to begin required workouts July 13, followed by an enhanced training schedule that begins July 24 and a normal, four-week preseason camp starting Aug. 7.
The biggest change is the addition of two weeks leading up to preseason camp, referred to as “enhanced summer access,” which will be dedicated to weight training, conditioning, film review, walk-throughs and meetings.
Players will be allowed up to 20 hours of countable athletically related activities per week, including up to one hour each day for a walk-through. The players won’t be allowed to wear helmets or pads during walk-throughs, but they can use a football.
Freeze says he still needs more clarity on what those two weeks of enhanced summer access means.
“It sounds like it’s going to be a walk-through, which I’m fine with,” Freeze said of the on-field practice portion of two week period in late July that has been approved. “There’s a lot of teaching we can get done with that, but we definitely need to add some clarity because you start adding a football to a walk-through – can we throw it, can we not throw it? There are some questions that I think all of us coaches need to get answered. The priority before camp, is getting them back in football playing shape more so than us having an hour walk-through or another meeting.”
Plenty of other questions for a return to football for Freeze still remain.
“Are they going to let us ride the bus together to Blacksburg,” he questioned. “Are we going to have to take 10 buses? Do we get to eat together at a team meal? Do we get to have our team meeting before (the game)? Can we get dressed in the same locker room? What happens when an offensive lineman tests positive for it for a team? Is the whole offensive line quarantined?”
What happens is a team is unable to play due to players testing positive for COVID-19? Will that team have to forfeit? Will the opposing team look to fill that opening on the schedule?
“If it continues that you have to quarantine to people that have been in the contact zone of someone that tests positive for it,” said Freeze, “It’s going to be very difficult for every single team to make every single week work.”
“I will be so glad when its just back to let’s get ready to play a football game,” Freeze continued, “but I don’t know when that time’s coming because there are so many unknowns. I don’t know who has the answers to them.”
