Irish Captain, ESPN Host Mike Golic Sr., ‘Confident’ For Football In 2020
Equipped with the first-hand experience as a standout Notre Dame defensive lineman and an Irish captain in the mid-1980s, a nine-season NFL career, and now working his 20th year as a well-known ESPN Radio host and analyst, Mike Golic Sr. has almost 40 years of experience to pull from when speaking on any football-related topic.
But not even four decades in the business prepared Golic for the uncertainty coronavirus and COVID-19 wreaks as the clock ticks on the prospects of a 2020 college football season.
“I know football coaches love control and that is one thing they don’t have right now, control,” Golic said.
We had a chance last week to catch-up with Golic and he shared some thoughts on if, when and how a football season might look, and the challenges players and coaches face preparing for something that may never happen.
BlueandGold.com: The question on everybody’s mind is from your personal knowledge and what you are hearing, do you believe there will be a football season in 2020?
Golic: “I’m still confident there will be a season. I am less confident there will be a normal season. All I know is that once something is settled, I think we just have to accept where we are when it’s decided and do the best we can from that point on, no matter what it looks like.”
BlueandGold.com: Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly set July 1 as the deadline date to have his guys back on campus, working out and preparing for an on-time start to the football season (scheduled to begin Aug. 29 against Navy in Dublin, Ireland). Why does Kelly need two months to prepare for a three-month season?
Golic: “I do think it is very difficult to actually put a date on it. But I am also not a coach who is trying to plan out — like Coach Kelly is — for the time he needs to prepare his players. You can’t just have everybody show up and immediately put them in pads.
“There has to be a build-up even before you get pads on. Is July 1 that date? Brian Kelly has been doing this a long time. I’m sure he is counting the weeks while still looking at that first game at the end of August.”
BlueandGold.com: It’s been widely reported that in addition to the obvious benefits of cardio and strength training, injury prevention is another important element to these preseason workouts?
Golic: “Huge! And here, we’re going to be talking about soft-tissue injuries. If you’re not running enough and training enough, what you’re going to see is hamstrings, quads and calves. That’s where you’re going to get pulls without adequate training.
“Obviously, hurting something when you are out for the season is the worst thing, but if you hurt something before the season starts, a soft-tissue injury, those usually linger and can hang with you for a long time.”
BlueandGold.com: What other concerns do you hold as players and coaches try to operate under an abbreviated preseason workout schedule?
Golic: “The only way to simulate the football part of it on the field — as far as the physical part — is to hit. And you obviously have to wait to get pads on for that. But for your body, you typically can get the speed work in, the change of direction, the slow-to-fast.
“You can get a lot of that work in to get your muscles ready for when the pads go on. That is something that the players can’t do right now and maybe even into the summer with that close supervision. That’s a monster concern.”
BlueandGold.com: Obviously so many unknowns, any other particular storylines you’ll be watching?
Golic: “This is new to everybody, but this is where the coaches are going to have to really show a little bit of patience and maybe they can’t jump as quickly as they want to speed this thing up.
“They have to go through the process of getting the players physically ready. I’m sure that’s why Coach Kelly is looking at the July 1 start date.”
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