When Auburn’s football players step foot on campus Thursday for the first time in nearly three months, it will signify the first steps toward a return to a sense of normalcy for the athletic program.
Following a prolonged time away from the facility — for many athletes the longest they’ve gone in years without any sort of formal in-person instruction — Auburn’s football team will report back to campus on Thursday evening ahead of sanctioned voluntary offseason workouts that will begin Monday. As Auburn prepares for the return of 85 scholarship players, plus walk-ons, the program — led by the stewardship of team doctor Michael Goodlett — has spent the last four or five weeks devising guidelines and protocol to follow to ensure a safe return to campus for the team in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“One of the things that you learn about moments of crisis is that you realize the talent we have in this athletics department,” Auburn athletics director Allen Greene said Tuesday. “We have people who have worked incredibly hard…. So many people in our athletics department, all the members of task forces. And we still have work to do. It’s not foolproof, right? It’s not foolproof. This virus, it’s different. But the plan that we have in place is one of the best plans I’ve seen.”
The details of that plan have not been fully disclosed, though Auburn coach Gus Malzahn provided some insight into the steps and measures the program is taking to ensure the health and safety of its players and coaches as they return to campus.
Players will begin arriving at Auburn on Thursday evening, with their reporting times staggered so as to limit the number checking into the dorms at a given time. Upon arrival, players will only come in close contact with their assigned roommate that night so as to limit the spread of any potential illness prior to Friday morning. At that point, all players—regardless if they’ve displayed symptoms of the coronavirus—will be tested for COVID-19.
Auburn anticipates the results of all coronavirus tests will be back within 24 hours. Once results are back and players have tested negative for the virus, the team will begin physicals and concussion tests with team doctors, as well as some fitness-related tests administered by strength and conditioning coach Ryan Russell ahead of workouts on Monday.
Any player who tests positive for COVID-19 will be immediately isolated in a separate dorm and will be quarantined under a separate protocol, the exact details of which were not disclosed on Tuesday. One pertinent detail regarding positive tests is that Malzahn said a plan is in place for contact tracing should a player test positive for the coronavirus in order to attempt to stamp out any potential outbreak among the team. It’s also why the program plans to make sure players are only around their roommate for those first 48 hours before test results come back.
“Doc Goodlett has done a super job of making sure that if someone tests positive, we will have a record of who’s been around, who’s in contact, and obviously they’ll be tested at the same time,” Malzahn said. “That should help. I think the challenge will be, as we move forward and trying to get back to some kind of normal, you know, everything that goes with that. But we feel very good about our plan, especially the first seven days.”
During those first seven days, players will be quarantined in their dorms—even those who may have previously lived off campus will be required to stay in the dorms—and contact will be limited to small groups. Once workouts begin on Monday, players will be separated into groups of eight to work with Russell and the strength and conditioning staff at the football facility to maintain social distancing guidelines as they return to the weight room and indoor practice facility for conditioning drills.
Along with workouts, players will be educated on proper safety measures for when the program decides to “release them back into normal settings.” That will include providing all players with masks to wear in order to help mitigate the spread of airborne droplets that could carry the virus or other diseases.
While workouts will happen in person under the supervision of Russell and his staff, the team will continue to conduct meetings through Zoom, as they’ve done the last couple of months from home during their time away from campus. It’s something that has become routine for Malzahn and the team, at this point, so that transition should be seamless.
Malzahn and his staff will also conduct team-building exercises during that first week, especially with how much free time everyone will have during that period of quarantine in the dorms.
“I’ll just say this, I’m very excited and I know our staff is excited to have our players back,” Malzahn said. “This is really big. We’re ready to get things back going.”
While all players will be tested for coronavirus upon their return to campus, the program has not yet finalized its plans for continued testing. When asked how often players will be tested after that initial test on Friday, Malzahn said they are still undecided on how to go about that.
“We have the ability to do that at any time, but we’re going to have the temperature gauges and check for symptoms every day before they enter the building,” Malzahn said. “We do have the ability (to test more often), but that’s kind of undecided at this point.”
Though Goodlett and others have been working on the plan for a safe return to campus for players for more than a month now, Malzahn said Auburn is taking things “week by week” and did not divulge the steps the program plans to take following that first week of testing, quarantining and education.
The key focus the first week, along with making sure everyone is healthy and cleared to begin workouts, is making sure all players understand the new operating procedures and safety protocols to help ensure that there will be football this fall.
“It's bigger than them,” Malzahn said. “You've got to understand -- I probably worry just as much about my coaches and older guys, support staff; we're just going to be responsible. And I think the motivating factor is that we all want to play football. I promise you our players are probably at the forefront of that. So, with coming back, there's going to be a responsibility. And that responsibility is going to be making sure that you stay safe and you do the things you're supposed to do -- social distancing, the mask…. The good thing is our coaches have been back for two and a half or three weeks, and we've all been operating. It's gone very well so far.”
As far as when actual practices or organized team activities will begin, Malzahn and others are still waiting for guidance from the SEC, which he believes is waiting to see how everything goes the next couple of weeks before making any decisions in thar regard.
“That's why we decided to go overboard the first week and isolate and quarantine for seven days,” Malzahn said. “I don't know what other teams are doing, but I'd bet very few are doing that.”
Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.
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