Notre Dame Fighting Irish: University needs to allow student-athletes back to campus

Notre Dame Fighting Irish athletic teams will suffer greatly if the University fails to allow its student-athletes back to campus before school starts in August.

It goes without saying that the University of Notre Dame is in a difficult position when it comes to making decisions for the best of its students. 

Notre Dame announced last week that the re-opening of the university would occur on August 10th. There would be no fall brake and the students would go home having finished the first semester before Thanksgiving.

While there has not been a formal announcement from the university, word on the street is that Notre Dame has decided to allow its student-athletes back on campus only once school resumes in August.

The football program would be exempt from this mandate, but probably would not be allowed back on campus until around July 1st.

If this is the policy that the University is taking, it is, without a doubt, a mistake for its athletic programs, given how they would be significantly behind the eight ball compared to other programs.

If the reaction of other universities is any indication, Notre Dame’s decision was a knee-jerk reaction that needs revisited.

While it’s reasonable to expect Notre Dame’s student-athletes to put in offseason work on their own, it does not replace the benefits of whole-team workouts. For football, it has been easy to see the transformation of the Irish strength and conditioning program under Matt Balis. Try as they might, Notre Dame football players simply cannot replicate that level of training on their own.

It goes without saying that it’s not only the football program that would bare the brunt of a decision to keep the university’s athletic facilities closed. Under a new regime, Niele Ivey’s women’s basketball program would suffer greatly from an inability to implement a new system under a new coach and develop the camaraderie it desperately needs.

Schools around the country are bringing their student-athletes back in June. If Notre Dame wants to keep up with the Joneses, they need to follow suit.