Ian Book And Life In A De Facto Bubble
Ian Book is used to doing on-field work in de facto bubble wrap, because no one gains anything from risking a needless friendly fire injury at football’s most important position before the season even starts or during a game week. Every coach, teammate and fan’s worries are negligible when Book wears a red non-contact jersey.
Factor in a pandemic, and his entire routine – from practice to meetings to classes – becomes one continuous exercise keeping him out of harm’s way. It’s as if he’s painted head-to-toe in that same shade of red. A lineman drilling him to the turf is the least of Notre Dame’s concerns. The task at hand is keeping him free of any COVID-19 snags, whether it’s the disease itself or contact with someone who has it.
Book is sacrificing any semblance of a normal college student’s life to ensure the Irish don’t lose a three-year starting quarterback a day or two before a game because he spent too much time around someone who tested positive. In this age of sports being played in bubbles, Book resides in his own unofficial one. It has brought him to within four days of Notre Dame’s season-opener against Duke without complication.
“I don’t do much,” Book said Tuesday in a Zoom teleconference. “I go home and I come straight here. I’m here early in the morning, I leave late at night, I’m wearing my mask with Coach (Tommy) Rees all the time, wearing my mask with the other quarterbacks, always hand sanitizing. I would hate to miss a game for testing positive or being in a contact trace.”
The latter can sometimes thin a position group more than a positive test could. The ACC’s contact-tracing protocols require anyone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes to quarantine for 14 days. A positive test sends a player into isolation for 10 days.
Position meetings, roommates and in-person classes are not conducive to avoiding close contact situations, even with masks. And nowhere would an instant trimming of an entire position group be more harmful than at quarterback. Notre Dame, though, has carefully kept Book distanced from potential virus snafus. All his classes are held via Zoom. He does not have a roommate.
“We’re not concerned about it,” coach Brian Kelly said Monday. “We have Ian in a different situation where he is by himself. We keep him under wraps and will continue to do that.”
Notre Dame has structured its position meetings to ensure players stay 6 feet apart and are always masked up. In fact, Kelly said two contact tracing possibilities were brought to his attention earlier this summer but were diffused due to that setup.
“Because of our six-feet separation and wearing masks, we were disqualified from having to go through that,” Kelly said. “I applaud our coaches and their discipline for that, and our players.”
By no coincidence, Notre Dame’s contact-tracing absences declined from seven players on the first day of practice despite only two positive tests. Five positives revealed on Aug. 20 produced six contact tracing instances, and two new cases announced on Aug. 29 knocked out only two additional players. Kelly said Monday Notre Dame has zero active cases or players in quarantine.
The care demonstrated in those potentially tricky situations has allowed Notre Dame to avoid instances where it lacked sufficient bodies at a position, preventing a normal practice. Not every college team can boast that. Contact and extended exposure in actual practice settings are of little concern for Kelly, especially for quarterbacks who don’t get tackled.
“On the field, it’s quite difficult for a quarterback to be caught in that,” Kelly said. “They’re not that close relative to contact. They’re not having physical contact with each other that would rule them out.”
An endless list of precautions, new habits and last month’s doubt about the season’s viability are still no reasons for distraction. Notre Dame’s goals haven’t changed. The Irish are still a preseason top-10 team with national title aspirations, and Book understands getting there requires him to reach another level of consistency and production than he did a year ago.
He and Rees – elevated to offensive coordinator from quarterbacks coach in January – are at the controls of an offense that will feature plenty of enticing but not-yet-proven skill position players. Book has a hand in making them better. He spends “hours before practice and hours after practice” with Rees and stayed in as much contact as allowed before he reported back to campus.
“When the other conferences were deciding to cancel, it was huge just to have faith and stick with it,” Book said. “If we do play, you’d hate to not be ready for it. Just prepare every day like we were going to play. Now we’re finally here, and it feels great to get to game week.”
Book will mark the end of training camp by parting with his month-long project: a moustache that had grown in fully as of Tuesday.
“My mom gets here Thursday,” Book said. “It’ll be gone by then.”
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