College football programs trying to make sense of what's next while dealing with coronavirus - USA TODAY

Paul Myerberg USA TODAY

Published 9:13 AM EDT Mar 13, 2020

Ongoing efforts to curtail further spread of the coronavirus have impacted spring football across the Bowl Subdivision, with conferences and programs opting to postpone or cancel practice, close end-of-spring scrimmages and suspend key recruiting events.

At least six programs have already decided to cancel their spring games in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, with the number almost certainly set to increase in the coming weeks. National programs Southern California and Oklahoma have already closed practice indefinitely. Notre Dame announced on Thursday that all team activities have been postponed, as coach Brian Kelly asked the team "not to return to campus until further notice" after the university decided to suspend in-person classes.

Michigan, which had already decided to not hold a spring game, made on Thursday what athletics director Warde Manuel called the "unprecedented and proactive decision" to suspend all athletic activities, including football practices, for the indefinite future. So did fellow Big Ten members Ohio State, which was scheduled to return on Tuesday but chose to cancel spring drills after three practices, and Penn State, which first postponed all football-related happenings before deciding to suspend its spring game.

"As heartbreaking as this is for our student-athletes, coaches and staff, it is clear that the decision to suspend competition and focus on this worldwide health crisis is the only responsible action," said Penn State athletics director Sandy Barbour. "This is an unprecedented situation and is very difficult to navigate and requires us to move forward with an abundance of caution."

Most FBS conferences issued statements on Thursday announcing the suspension of all sports still in competition, most notably college basketball. The NCAA followed suit by canceling the men's and women's basketball tournaments and all remaining winter and spring championships.

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But several conferences have left spring football up to the discretion of its schools. The SEC announced the suspension of regular-season competition for all sports on member campuses through the end of March — the suspension could last longer, commissioner Greg Sankey admitted — but will allow schools to determine practice schedules for football, conference spokesman Chuck Dunlap told USA TODAY Sports.

Likewise with the Mountain West, which said in a statement that spring practices "are a matter of institutional discretion depending upon local conditions," and the American.

Other leagues took a firmer approach. The MAC implemented policies stopping informal practices such as spring drills. The ACC "suspended all athletic related activities including all competition, formal and organized practice, recruiting and participation in NCAA championships until further notice," the league said on Thursday.

“This is uncharted territory and the health and safety of our student-athletes and institutions remains our top priority,” said commissioner John Swofford.

Several programs have gone ahead and either canceled or postponed spring drills. South Florida moved back the start of practice, which were set to begin on Thursday, and will make a decision in the coming weeks about its spring game. Virginia has stopped all team activities, while Baylor has done the same until at least March 23. Due to the university's decision to extend spring break for all students, South Carolina won't hold spring practice as scheduled next week. Texas will revisit when to start spring drills no earlier than March 29, athletics director Chris Del Conte said.

"I’ve had a lot of coaches that have called, saying, ‘What’s the consensus?’ To be quite honest with you, there’s really not any consensus out there," said Todd Berry, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.

"We all want our players to be safe. I think everyone is kind of approaching this differently, and I don’t know that’s necessarily a bad thing. I think every place is somewhat unique. I think how rural or cosmopolitan your university is, that has some impact."

Additional cancellations and postponements across the Power Five and Group of Five will almost undoubtedly follow. Already, several programs — including Rutgers, Brigham Young, Arizona State and others — have decided to table scheduled football events such as pro days and coaching clinics. BYU canceled a clinic set for Friday night featuring Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid, and said it would decide soon whether the Cougars would return next week to resume spring drills.

In addition to disrupting practices, the potential spread of COVID-19 among student-athletes and coaches has led many schools and several FBS conferences, including the SEC, ACC and Big Ten, to place extensive limitations on recruiting activity.

All recruiting, both on campus and off, has been suspended in the SEC through at least the end of March, said Sankey.

"I think the NCAA needs to fully engage on that issue," he added.

The suspension of recruiting activities comes during one of the busiest times of the recruiting calendar across the FBS, as teams look to use the spring game as a weekend to gather large clumps of prospective student-athletes on campus across the current and future recruiting cycles.

The recruiting calendar now sits in the "quiet period," during which time coaches can only speak to prospects on campus and cannot perform any off-campus evaluations. This period, which runs until April 15, is followed by by the "evaluation period," when coaching staffs can meet with recruits off campus and conduct an in-person evaluation. The second period runs through the end of May.

The end-of-spring recruiting weekend is doubly important for programs outside of established talent hotbeds, which lean on the high-profile event as a way to draw national prospects on campus outside of the fall months. Using the spring game as a large event has become even more prevalent due to recent changes to NCAA bylaws, which allow a program's annual number of official recruiting visits to be used outside of the regular season.

"I wouldn’t be surprised, though, to make sure that this is fair across the board for everybody, for the NCAA not to just say, ‘We’re going to go ahead and just impose a dead period,'" Berry said. "I think there’s still some time within the window to try to put some of those things back in the box, if there’s an opportunity for us to get ahead of this virus a little bit."

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