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Spring Practice In The Summer? Maybe So

Spring football practice never got underway at UNC, so when might the Tar Heels get back onto the practice fields?
Spring football practice never got underway at UNC, so when might the Tar Heels get back onto the practice fields? (THI)

With most or all of spring practice cancelled across the board in college football, what are some of the options being banded about with respect to getting teams back onto the field for their workouts, assuming norm is restored at some point?

The cancellations due to the coronavirus pandemic has put into flux nearly every element of American life, including college football, in which its coaches and administrators have been scrambling to discuss and lay faith to various options that could become a reality if and when the effects of the virus subside enough enabling the restoration of regular life.

North Carolina Coach Mack Brown offered up some possibilities during a virtual press conference Monday afternoon, though the Hall of Fame coach was simply discussing what he’s heard so far. Obviously, nothing is etched in stone.

One proposal that has already been advanced is a 10-day camp this summer.

“There’s a lot of different people (and) avenues that it looks at,” Brown said. “I know that (UNC director of athletics) Bubba (Cunningham) has talked to different ADs about it, I think it’s been proposed to the NCAA. We’re also talking to the AFCA about it… There’s so different many things right now that the NCAA is considering and I think, obviously, we’ve got to wait and see, even though spring practice is cancelled for the spring what does that mean?”


There's no certainty as to when the Tar Heels will be back on their practice fields.
There's no certainty as to when the Tar Heels will be back on their practice fields. (THI)
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Eleven ACC programs had already started spring practice before the shutdown was instituted, and some were nearly halfway completed. How that’s balanced versus the programs that hadn’t held one practice might need to be hammered out, as well. But that’s at the back end of whatever is eventually allowed.

One thing is for certain, nothing will happen during the spring semester, which concludes in early May.

“The CDC has said that basically our normal programming is shut down until May 9,” Brown said. “So, who knows? Who knows what's next? People say, can you have spring practice? We've actually proposed that we might get 10 days of spring practice this summer, like a pro camp, and we could get in shorts or just have an opportunity to get to see the freshmen and get to know a little bit more about them. Some have talked about tacking on maybe five extra days of practice in the fall.”

Brown has a preference, though.


No post-practice interviews with Brown this spring, but will they return in the summer?
No post-practice interviews with Brown this spring, but will they return in the summer? (THI)

“I'd rather see it in the summer, if we have it,” he said. “Some question whether we’ll be able to have a full football season. Some question as to whether we’ll be able to have any football season… In my position, what I've got to do is look at the possibility of us having a summer workout with spring practice, so we've got to prepare for that. And my gosh, we’ve got time now.”

The Tar Heels’ head man did say he thinks there will probably be a season, but the situation is as much up in the air to him now as it is for everyone else.

American life will eventually fall back into place, but where the college football part of that process fits in nobody yet knows. When it does, Brown is hoping for a semblance of spring football, even if it’s in the summer.


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