The 2020 football season, if it begins on time, will start without the benefit of the spring evaluation period. According to our college insider B.J. Jones prepare yourself for some sloppy action this fall.
“If you think college football was sloppy at the beginning of the season before, this season especially it’s going to be very sloppy for the first couple of weeks,” Jones said on a special edition of HBCU Conversations.
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It’s no reflection on the talent, will or passion of the players and coaches. The unexpected toll that the Coronavirus has had on college athletics and the world will have ripple effects once things are back under control.
“In the spring that’s when the coaches get to know the kids, what type of personnel do we have. What can we run? What’s everyone’s abilities? Taking away spring practice you don’t get that.,” Jones added.
Innovation will trump the old normal
Some coaches are brand new in places like Benedict College and Central State University for example. Those coaches have barely had any time with their players before campuses shuddered across the country. They along with other coaches across the country will have to be innovative when, and if, camp starts back in late summer. Evaluation, conditioning, and implementation will be rolled into the same bag.
Jones thinks the edge in 2020 will go towards the coaches who can best handle these new and unseen circumstances.
“It’s going to have to be an innovative coach. Nothing is normal anymore. Innovative on how you implement everything. Conditioning is probably going to be off. How are you going to innovate conditioning? How are you going to innovate adding things to the playbook? You aren’t going to be able to do it the old fashioned way or the way that it’s always been done.”
It may be a while before we can realistically think about the start of college football once again. But it’s quite certain that football coaches are thinking about what they are going to do, once they have the opportunity again.