With COVID-19 ever-looming, UK football players savor every moment they have together
Not a single down of football is guaranteed this fall, and Landon Young knows it.
Yes, the University of Kentucky football team took to its practice field — and then to its indoor facility after rain moved into the area — for its first official practice since March, when a weeklong spring break turned into a much longer stay away from campus because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Practicing on a Tuesday is one thing. If the Cats can practice as scheduled on Thursday, even better. But it’s still a long time — more than five weeks — until Kentucky travels to Auburn for its season opener, and things change quickly these days. One week the Big Ten and Pac-12 were announcing new schedules for the fall; days later both announced plans to postpone their seasons to spring.
The potential ramifications of the SEC possibly following suit — What happens to our eligibility? Do we start preparing for the draft? — started going through the minds of UK’s players as the chaos unfolded last week.
“There was definitely a time I was worried,” said Young, a senior offensive tackle from Lafayette High School. “I figured once one came off that all of the other conferences were gonna sort of jump on the bandwagon. I’m glad the SEC didn’t. I’m glad they’re giving us a chance to at least go out here and try, giving us a chance to be safe, giving us a chance to show that these protocols are working.”
Young isn’t naive, though. He and his teammates are ever cognizant of the hour-to-hour fight college athletics as a whole has in front of it when it comes to seeing a game, let alone an entire season, play out to its fullest extent. He believes UK’s facilities to be safer than anywhere he could be outside of them, and its players to be holding one another accountable, but much of football’s fate seems to rest in the hands of less-controllable populations and venues.
So, seize the day.
“It’s always something that we’re scared of, always something that we’re thinking about when we go out and practice,” Young said. “That’s why we go out there and practice like it’s our last play, because we truly do not know when our last play will be.”
Outside of the airborne specter hanging over their heads — and the face masks and shields donned to combat its spread — UK’s return to the practice field resembled most kickoffs to the fall. It was especially similar to last year’s, as most of the guys making tackles and catching balls were major contributors in 2019.
Quarterback Terry Wilson, sidelined most of last season with a left knee injury, was a full participant for the first time since early last September. His timing might have been off had he not spent a good chunk of the summer training with receivers — and sometimes against defensive backs — in backyards, parks and anywhere else they could find around Lexington to run routes.
“It felt good,” Wilson said. “It felt normal, even with all the restrictions that we’re going through right now. It just felt really good to be back out there with everybody and to start back up and get the rust off of us and keep getting better.”
Wilson, who’s expecting the birth of a daughter at the end of this month, spooked fans earlier this month with a tweet that sounded like he was considering opting out in 2020. He admitted to that being a consideration.
“It was coming to that point of thinking what was best for me and the newborn on the way and my girlfriend, just what was the safest thing to do?” Wilson said. “But everybody on this team, we work hard every day and we worked hard throughout this whole summer. I just wanted to be around them and come back and finish strong with my guys.
“It definitely got to a point in time where, it’s scary, you don’t know what to expect, but I feel like we got past that and we’re here.”
2020 UK football schedule
Home games in all capital letters. Kickoff times and TV details to be announced later.
Sept. 26: At Auburn
Oct. 3: MISSISSIPPI
Oct. 10: MISSISSIPPI STATE
Oct. 17: At Tennessee
Oct. 24: GEORGIA
Oct. 31: At Missouri
Nov. 14: VANDERBILT
Nov. 21: At Alabama
Nov. 28: At Florida
Dec. 5: SOUTH CAROLINA
