A Potential Notre Dame Football Season Unlike Any Other
If a college football season does take place this fall, it likely still will not serve as a sign of returning to normalcy in this year of COVID-19.
It will be anything but a normal season when it comes to all the logistics involved while the aftershocks, and maybe even a potential second wave, occurs.
“There will be great disparities that will be inevitable in this,” Notre Dame vice president and director of athletics Jack Swarbrick stated during a Tuesday Zoom session with the media. “The NCAA will do what it can, I think, to regulate.
“But you’re still going to have circumstances where schools aren’t open, and others are. Or states haven’t reopened, and some have. The bigger challenge for us is the consequence that will have on competing in the fall.
“I’m not concerned about a competitive advantage or disadvantage. I accepted long ago in this pandemic that’s a natural consequence. I have told our coaches over and over again do not focus on that issue. Focus on health — your health, the staff’s health ... most importantly our students. We’ll go from there.”
There are several different layers that involve choosing a starting date for all football teams, dealing with different state regulations, varying school openings, formulating a schedule, etc., that create myriad complexities.
Also, all it takes is one member of the team, be it staff or a student-athlete, to contract the virus that can gum the works and result in a new quarantine.
“What’s the [team] record consequence if someone deciding they can’t play — or having a week where they can’t play because of an outbreak?” Swarbrick asked.
Then there are the logistics still involved even if there is a go-ahead to start convening and engaging in workouts hopefully by July.
With more than 100 players on a team, never mind support staff and coaches, and gatherings of more than 50 people discouraged if not prohibited, this creates numerous questions.
“Do we need to do something different with our locker room?” Swarbrick noted. “Do we need to create additional space — taking the locker room we have now and maybe using our game-day locker room in the stadium for some students, and the one in our football building for others?”
The same applies to the weight room. How many people can be allowed in at a certain time? A plan also needs to be put in at such a sweaty environment for constant cleaning, including the equipment.
We haven’t even addressed how practice will be run. Social distancing among players, in addition to how coaches instruct them, likely will have to adjust to another “new normal.”
“Do we approach practice differently in terms of the interaction during the course of practice?” Swarbrick said.
As for game-day operation, the checklist to address is enormous. That likewise begins with what is best for the student-athletes and the overall student population.
The player walk from the football offices to the stadium has become a popular tradition with thousands of people scrunched together to demonstrate their support on that walk.
“Can we do that in these circumstances?” Swarbrick asked again.
Much was made last year of Notre Dame ending a streak of stadium sellouts that dated back to 1974, but this year that topic is more irrelevant than ever. Instead of the listed capacity of 77,622, maybe about half that number might be more appropriate.
And that’s only part of the game-day operations that have to be evaluated.
“What will the entries into the stadium look like?” Swarbrick continued. “How will we change the concession experience? ... How do we also manage the lines?”
While the stadium operations can be somewhat managed, there is a far greater question on what occurs outside of it.
“Tailgating creates a much more challenging dynamic to control — to establish some regulations around having the safest environment you can,” Swarbrick said.
However, everything begins with the student body, on the field and in the stands.
“If our football team can play, our other students should be able to be in the stadium to watch them play,” Swarbrick concluded. “First and foremost we’ll focus on their safety.”
It is an “off season” of thought unlike ever experienced since World War II.
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