Tag: college football coronavirus

Organized team activities for college football begin today

Teams are now permitted to begin team workouts and film sessions.

It may not feel like it, but the college football season has technically started.

Monday July 13 is the first day that college football programs are permitted to begin organized team actives such as weight training, conditioning, and film sessions. Previously these activities were classified as mandatory, but the Big Ten announced that summer activities would remain voluntary through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Michigan State football social team has started to share some content for the occasion. Below is a video from Twitter of a workout from this morning.

The teams’s official account also teased some new content coming out today, so we’ll be on the lookout for that.

MSU beat reporter Chris Solari was on campus today and posted a picture of an MSU QB working out with a couple of receivers at Munn Field.

Right now teams are permitted eight hours a week of walkthroughs and meetings. That will jump up to 20 hours per week on July 24. Then the first practices for the fall season are scheduled to begin on August 7.

We’ll see if the MSU football season ever gets off the ground with the planned ten-game conference-only schedule, but the team is still preparing as if it is.

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One Notre Dame football player tests positive for COVID-19

Notre Dame players were tested for COVID-19 last week and the good news is just one came back positive.

Of the 91 Notre Dame football players and 50 staff members tested for COVID-19 last week, the results are back and one test did come back positive.

That player has not been identified but has been asymptomatic and is now self-isolating.  Four additional players tested positive for the COVID-19 antibody.

Although it’s not perfect, that’s about as good of news that anyone could have possibly hoped for considering what we’ve recently seen at Clemson, LSU, Kansas State and plenty of other college campuses.

Again, it’s not perfect but all things considered, just one positive test of the over 140 administered is good news. Now can Notre Dame keep it that way and can other universities see their numbers drop?

Voluntary workouts ahead of the 2020 football season began Monday at Notre Dame.  The NCAA doesn’t allow teams to start required team activities until July 12.

Five Nutty Predictions That Just Might Be Right: 20 for 2020 Offseason Topics No. 2

20 for 2020: 20 key college football offseason topics: 5 nutty, out there predictions that just might turn out to be right.

20 for 2020: 20 key college football offseason topics, No. 2: 5 nutty, out there predictions that just might turn out to be right.

– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

20 for 2020 Offseason Topics 
20. Best Teams To Not Make CFP
19: Teams That Will Rebound Big
18. Teams That Will Fall Back
17: Every Power 5 Team’s Letdown Game
16. Top 5 Instant Impact New Head Coaches
15. 2nd Year Coaches Who’ll Be Better
14. Power 5 Hot Seat Coach Rankings
13. Key Transfers You Forgot About
12. Five Big Power 5 Upset Alerts
11. Great Players About To Go Nuclear
10. Group of 5 Teams In New Year’s Six Chase
9. Power 5 Sleeper Teams
8. Most Interesting Quarterback Battles
7. 5 Teams That Might Disappoint
6. 5 Teams That Might Surprise
5. Group of Five Conference Ranking
4. Power 5 Conference Ranking
3. Top Non-Obvious Heisman Candidates
1. NEXT: The College Football Playoff call

We’ll keep on doing what we do whether or not there’s a season, but all thoughts go out to those suffering and struggling, and to all the health care workers battling above and beyond the call. Please … stay safe.

Welcome once again to the annual three-true-outcome piece.

With these offseason big-swing cuts, I either walk, strike out – usually in painfully embarrassing fashion – or hit a towering home run.

Last year, for example, I struck out big-time with the call that Texas A&M would beat Clemson on the way to being a big thing, and whiffed harder on the idea that Michigan would win the Big Ten championship.

I’ll take the K on the call that Urban Meyer would be the next USC head coach, but it was on a borderline pitch off the edge of the plate. I lined out by saying Oklahoma would get to the CFP and end up playing for the national title, but I cleared the fence by calling that either Clemson or Alabama would miss out on the College Football Playoff.

So you get the idea.

Oh, I’ll miss massively on a few of these, but …

Get ready for 1977 World Series Game 6 Reggie Jackson.

5. There will be college football in 2020, but …

It will depend on how we all get through what’s potentially coming.

If the optics of playing a fun game are too awful five months from now, then it’s an absolute and hard no on a season. However, if the country wants and needs any sort of a morale boost/diversion, and the mood is there for football …

Football will figure something out.

It might not be a full season, but – obviously this is I’m-not-a-doctor-or-specialist speculation – if it’s possible 4-to-6 months from now, the NCAA will 1) procure enough easy tests with quick results to ensure that no infected player or coach goes on the field, and 2) will get creative enough with the timing and scheduling to have college football in some form.

CFN in 60: 5 Nutty College Football Predictions Video
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Knock out two other key elements from the equation.

First, until there’s a vaccine, just forget about the idea of any fans being in the stands until 2021, and even that’s a maybe.

There are too many parts that athletic directors and the NCAA can’t control, and squishing together tens of thousands of people together in a stadium is an easy – but painful – part of the logistics that can be eliminated.

Also, don’t assume for a second that player preparedness has anything to do with this. Whether or not the guys are in shape is on them, the coaches, and the programs.

The NCAA might relax the time restrictions and practice limit rules, but if there’s a way to get players on the field playing college football in front of TV cameras, it’s going to happen.

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Remember, the NBA, NHL, NCAA, and – even with a little more time – MLB were caught totally flat-footed. The NFL and college football powers-that-be have at least four months to come up with a way to do what they do.

It might take draconian measures – like sequestering and quarantining the players once they have negative tests – and/or it might take daily checkups, but if there’s any possible way to have football before the end of the year, it’ll happen.

Now, assuming that is all true in some way …

NEXT: No. 4 Nutty Offseason Prediction

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