Notre Dame football: Brian Kelly gives Irish fans a doomsday clock
By Jack Leniart
Notre Dame football head coach Brian Kelly went on the Scott Van Pelt show and offered his take on the potential cancellation of the upcoming season.
Notre Dame football along with the rest of the college football world has suspended all activities due to the coronavirus pandemic. This week, Brian Kelly went on Scott Van Pelt’s show and talked about when football would need to resume to ensure player safety and avoid a diminished product.
For the past few weeks, the entire country has been gripped by the spread of COVID-19, otherwise known as the coronavirus. As a result, all sports have canceled practices, games, and other activities.
At first, I think most college football fans thought that the upcoming 2020 season was not in jeopardy of being canceled. With each passing day, however, the likelihood of that happening is growing.
Earlier this week, Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly gave voice to these mounting concerns on Scott Van Pelt’s show. He emphasized the uncertainty surrounding this issue and simply said: “we’re all just trying to figure this out.”
Kelly mentioned that he and his staff have concerns regarding academic performance, player safety, and overall preparedness.
On the academic front, the University of Notre Dame has recently announced that all students will have the option of “pass/no credit” after seeing their grades at the end of the Spring semester. Essentially, what that means is poor grades (ie ones that could make student-athletes academically ineligible) could be voided and students could then retake those classes.
As all classes shifted from in-person to online, the student-athletes on the Notre Dame football team have not been cut off from the resources they had. In speaking about academics Kelly said, “Our football coaches have had to take off the football coach hat and put on the academic support hat.”
From a football perspective, Kelly talked about the risks of not having adequate conditioning and practicing. He said, “There is going to be a date where from a player safety standpoint, we have to say this is a date we can live with to get these young men physically conditioned and ready to go into camp.”
When asked if he could provide a specific date, Kelly said July 1st. With that response, he effectively gave Irish fans (and college football fans around the world) a doomsday clock.
Kelly expanded on his answer by saying, “You’re going to need at least four weeks. Strength and conditioning coaches are going to want six. Sports medicine is probably looking at four to six weeks.” He concluded his thoughts on the timeline by definitively saying, “College football is going to be affected if we’re not playing in (about) 90 days.”
Resuming practice as soon as they safely can is slightly more important to the Notre Dame football team this year because the Irish start their season one week earlier than most FBS programs. Notre Dame is scheduled to kick off its 2020 season in Dublin, Ireland against Navy on August 29th.
Next. Notre Dame football: COVID-19's impact on eligibility. dark
Disclaimer: I’m not trying to make light of the current situation. College football should not and will not take precedence over global health. In these uncertain times, we’re all just waiting for the world to return to normalcy. In the United States, normalcy for a significant amount of the population is sports, among which football is the most popular.