Some Thursday morning football notes...
With the news of the Big 10’s schedule plan and start date, it appears the ACC is going to going to be the lone Power 5 conference trying to play more than 10 games. The SEC and the PAC-12 are going to be the last Power 5 conferences to start play.
It’s amazing that the Power 5 conferences could not work together enough to determine a uniform start date or uniform number of games. But there’s no one in charge at the power 5 level and clearly those conferences don’t work well together which makes you wonder if they could ever unify enough to break away from the NCAA.
Speaking of the NCAA, non-power 5 schools have until mid-August to declare if they are going to play this fall or not. If they do play then they have to follow the NCAA’s return to play guidelines which includes testing 72 hours prior to competition. That’s obviously a reasonable rule but a challenging one for the smaller schools. Tests are about $100 a piece and you are talking about testing 200+ every week when you factor in rosters, coaches, trainers, managers, etc. And you are talking about multiple sports. You are potentially looking at 20-25k dollars just in testing and for some schools it simply might not be financially possible.
What’s the schedule look like? — As early as today or Friday, it’s thought the SEC will at least release the two extra opponent’s that are going to be added to everyone’s league only schedule. When the actual schedule itself is going to be released remains unclear.
After many in the league felt last week that the two added games would just be the next two years of your cross divisional opponent, the SEC is putting together a schedule supposedly more fair and balanced after some schools (Florida and Alabama being two) expressed concern about the difficulty of their schedule when adding their 2021 and 2022 rotating opponents.
What does fair and balanced look like? In the Big Ten it means Ohio State got Purdue instead of Wisconsin.
In the SEC we wait to find out. As a source in the league told us on Wednesday, “I promise you some teams aren’t going to be happy.”
If Tennessee’s draw is Texas A&M and LSU as we are hearing is a strong possibility, you can put Jeremy Pruitt at the top of the not happy list as the Vols would be playing 5 teams ranked n the ESPN’s Top 15 power index, with three of the five coming from the SEC west and two being additions to the altered schedule.
Extended mental work — With the revised SEC pre-season calendar, the mental work teams are getting this summer is unprecedented and could be of real benefit for some. In talking to people around programs in the league there’s a feeling that freshmen could be more ready to play than ever this season because of all the walk-throughs and film time they have had and will have with the coaches making them more mentally ready to play. Freshman simply should know their position better than previous freshmen because of these “OTA” workouts.
It’s also giving coaches an idea of who can help and who can’t early on because of how well someone is or isn’t grasping the system.
It’s also a huge help to guys like Quavaris Crouch who would have been a spectator only in the spring and Jeremy Banks who wasn’t on the team in the spring.
More protection — Earlier this week, LSU’s equipment guys tweeted out photos of them installing the face shields on their helmets to help and try prevent any possible on the field COVID exposure if someone were practicing or playing and hadn’t been diagnosed. On Wednesday, South Carolina’s Will Muschamp confirmed his players would be wearing some type of face covering on the practice field as well. You can also add Tennessee to that list. The Vols have the face shields or mouth shields on their helmets as well. All the NFL teams have them also.