The day-to-day operations of the University at Buffalo football program, right now, are secondary for Lance Leipold. Maybe even tertiary.
The Bulls should have wrapped up their 15 spring practices this week, and played their annual spring game on Friday. All that was canceled.
Instead of coaching, Leipold and his staff are focusing on the health and the safety of UB’s football players, its coaches and its support staff amid the coronavirus outbreak. They’re also emphasizing the value of structure in an uncertain period.
“We have to try to keep it as normal as possible, as to what we’re used to,” Leipold told The News. “What I mean by ‘normal’ is that we have to build a routine.
“We’re going to build our players a certain foundation. Some of the structure, the discipline to go about things in a certain way, these are things they’re going to take with them after football is done, and this is a great learning experience for them. It’s things like, when do you wake up? When will you do schoolwork? When will you be active?”
Many of UB’s players have gone home – and have stayed home – since the Mid-American Conference announced March 12 that it had canceled all spring sports, in addition to the remainder of its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
Spring football at UB also also suspended, and UB confirmed last week that the spring game and the remainder of spring practices were off.
UB had completed nine of its 15 spring practices, and held its pro day March 11 at Murchie Family Fieldhouse. Many of UB’s players had already left campus for spring break when UB announced March 11 that it was moving to online classes and distance learning.
“We’ve talked as a staff and our first priority is the safety and the health of the players and of everyone in the program," Leipold said. "The majority of our players have gone home, and have stayed home. And from a football perspective, we’ve tabled a lot of things. Physical and mental health is a priority.”
People involved in the football program, Leipold said, are in good health and haven’t been impacted directly by Covid-19.
The Bulls’ organizational calendar, however, has been impacted. The Bulls cannot host players for visits, nor can coaches visit prospective recruits because of an NCAA recruiting moratorium. The NCAA announced Wednesday that the recruiting moratorium has been extended to May 31.
Without spring football, Leipold and his coaching staff cannot directly or continually evaluate players, particularly its freshmen who enrolled at UB in January, and its depth at specific position groups.
“We’ll continue our evaluations, from getting 60% (of practices) in,” Leipold said. “We’ve told our players that when it’s time, there will be times we’ll want to talk about football, because that’s also a part of normalcy, and if we don’t talk about football, then that’s breaking a routine. But like I told our staff, we’ll talk about football with intensity when it’s time to do that, when we get ready to prepare again. ...
“During the school year, this is different. We’re all learning about this. We’re talking to our peers in the profession and we’re trying to find the right way to do this. We will go back to normal, but when will it be? How will we operate? How do we move forward, in a positive way?”
The Bulls are scheduled to open their 2020 schedule Sept. 5 at Kansas State, but last week, ESPN football analyst Kirk Herbstreit said on ESPN Radio that he would be “shocked” if the NFL or college football have seasons in 2020. Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly told ESPN that if his team cannot begin training by July 1, it would impact preparation for the Irish’s season.
“If you can’t start training your football team by July 1, you’re going to need at least four weeks,” Kelly said. “Strength and conditioning coaches are going to want at least six. Sports medicine is probably looking at 4 to 6 weeks.”
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told reporters in a teleconference last week that the impact of Covid-19 on college football could be significant, to the point that if a season happens, games could go on without fans.
“We certainly are looking at the next 60 to 90 days,” Bowlsby said. “Depending upon how that goes, we’ll begin modeling around what the fall looks like.”
Leipold won’t speculate on the immediate future of college football will be, as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak and measures that are being taken to curtail the spread of the disease, including closing schools, curtailing public gatherings and cancelling and postponing sporting events.
“I don’t know if (speculation) does any good,” Leipold said. “Right now, everything is still scheduled for August and September. Some things are day-to-day, other things are in 10-to-14 day windows. That’s how we have to operate, for the time being.”
Leipold, like so many other coaches and administrators, is dealing in hypotheticals right now, but is focusing on what his program was able to gain – and also how it can be proactive in an ever-changing situation.
“We were fortunate to get nine practices in, and we enjoyed being able to start early, but we gave up a lot of strength and conditioning prep time that we were hoping to get implemented, immediately after spring practices,” Leipold said. “Starting next week, it would have been the beginning of building things and implementing more intense strength training.
“But, holistically, we have bigger things to worry about. We’re going to adjust and more forward as we get more information.”
"football" - Google News
April 03, 2020 at 10:44PM
https://ift.tt/3bP6mLS
UB football puts daily operations on the back burner during a global health crisis - Buffalo News
"football" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2ST7s35
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "UB football puts daily operations on the back burner during a global health crisis - Buffalo News"
Posting Komentar