New worries aside, high school football coaches excited to have any games on the calendar
After Tuesday’s announcement that high school football would start four full weeks later than normal, a sampling of Central Kentucky head coaches downplayed their new scheduling concerns and instead expressed both relief and hope that the 2020 season will actually happen amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We knew there was a good chance that there was going to be a delayed start,” said Mercer County head coach David Buchanan, who also serves as the president of the Kentucky Football Coaches Association. “I mean, obviously, we’re not crazy about that, but we sort of knew that was part of it.”
Buchanan and the KFCA’s regional representatives met with Kentucky High School Athletic Association Commissioner Julian Tackett last week to offer their thoughts on how to move forward. Tuesday’s news fell in line with those discussions, Buchanan said.
“I appreciate that Julian sought our input, and I think that we were part of the process,” Buchanan said. “And I’m excited that we’re playing football.”
The revised schedule eliminates the originally scheduled first three weeks of the season but pushes back the playoffs and championship games by a week as well, meaning teams will have the opportunity to make up at least one of those lost games in the newly formed bye week of Nov. 6. Other sports, such as soccer and volleyball, will also see their seasons delayed and condensed.
By Tuesday afternoon, Buchanan already had a plan in place to move the Titans’ rivalry game with Anderson County from Sept. 4 to that Nov. 6 spot. That also potentially saved the sponsorship for that game as it was one of the numerous early season “bowl” games many teams host to help raise funds for their programs.
“Money’s an issue right now, it really is, because not only does football pay for football, but football pays for everything else,” Buchanan said. “But I think we’re all just sort of saying, ‘Look, right now, let’s just try to get to play.’ And then if we get to play, then we’ll try to figure out the next step. We’ll figure out the rest of it.”
Tackett said in an interview with the Herald-Leader on Wednesday that the loss of bowl games and the corresponding sponsorship money didn’t factor into their discussions.
“Revenue has never entered into the decision. It wasn’t in their discussion and I’ve met with them (KFCA) three or four times and it never even came up.,” Tackett said. “There’s people, I’m sure, that would like to have had those early games, but the biggest problem that (coaches) identified very early in the conversations was that they wanted us, whatever date we picked, let’s pick up the schedule from there. Because scheduling in football is such a challenge.”
Frederick Douglass Coach Nathan McPeek was already trying to fill his team’s original bye week of Oct. 9 and will probably have no shortage of suitors for that spot with dozens of teams looking to fill out a potential nine-game maximum schedule. Bye weeks can offer players a break during a grueling season, but … “With having this much time off (due to the pandemic), I don’t think a bye week is super important,” McPeek said.
Douglass doesn’t have any sponsored bowls, but it does have three city rivalry games against Bryan Station, Tates Creek and Lafayette during the canceled weeks. None of those opponents matter for district seeding, so none, technically, have to be made up. McPeek said it would be up to school district administrators as to which of them would be moved, and he’s hoping to have a full slate. Seven games, eight games or nine games — any amount will do, McPeek said, noting his players were just thrilled the season wasn’t canceled.
“They have at least a date right now and our seniors are really excited about that. Obviously, we have to do things correctly the next few weeks and try to get (the virus) under control a little bit more. Not just us, but everybody doing things the best they can with the guidelines that are given,” McPeek said. “For your seniors to FaceTime you and they’re, you know, pretty emotional — that makes it all worth it for me.
“Obviously, I want to win and be the best team we can be and try to win championships, but that’s what it’s about — these seniors that may not get to go play college football … — I think that’s important to give them some type of season even though it’s going to be different.”
Like many other schools, Lexington Catholic is looking at missing its season-opening bowl game — the Knights’ against powerful St. Xavier. Coach Nigel Smith said he’ll look to move Lexington Catholic’s Sept. 4 Covington Catholic game to Nov. 6. Like McPeek, Smith said his players expressed relief as he talked to them after the KHSAA decision.
“It feels like we’ve taken a step whether or not it actually comes to fruition,” Smith said. “It may be a little bit of a recharge, mentally, that we’ve got something in our path that we can at least deal with now.”
One of the issues all coaches will have to deal with is the shortened amount of actual practice time leading up to the season’s kickoff. Traditionally, coaches have more than a month (originally scheduled as July 10 to Aug. 21) to prepare players in game-like situations, first in just helmets for three weeks and then in full gear for another three weeks before the first real snap.
Under the pandemic adjustments, that entire time frame — helmets to full gear — will be condensed to three weeks, beginning on Aug. 24.
“We’ve got to be real careful because we’re not dealing with college athletes or pro athletes where this is something they are probably better prepared physically for,” Smith said. “We’ve got to be really, really careful with how we deal with the kids. This isn’t normal. And they haven’t had anything normal beforehand. So we’ve got to be really responsible in how we approach this.”
What most players have had since June 15 during the pandemic is extra time doing conditioning, weight lifting and skills training, the only activities allowed under the KHSAA’s current coronavirus guidelines. Those drills can continue through Aug. 24.
“I’m not that torn up about the lengthening of the strength and conditioning period, because we lost March, April and May (due to school being out),” Mercer County’s Buchanan said. “I think I’ve got a great strength and conditioning coach, Josh Painter. So, for Mercer County, this work with him has been … really, really good for us.”
The most important thing right now for high school sports is to listen to the health guidance and help drive the COVID numbers down, Tackett said.
“Those three things — my hands continue to get wrinkled up because I wash them so much, and masks and social distancing — the more we can do that, the more we can drive down the data points, the better chance we have to play on schedule,” Tackett said.
But if the data does not support opening practice on Aug. 24, the KHSAA will likely have to look at another delay. It has some flexibility in its contract with the University of Kentucky and Kroger Field to keep pushing back its championship dates, Tackett said.
“We have a significant window of time now (till Aug. 24) to watch the data points,” Tackett said. “We’ve done our part, which is set up a framework. And now let’s just see if our state rallies again, takes care of things like they should and quits doing things they shouldn’t. Then we can, we should be able to continue on, but we’ll have to monitor that and see.”
This story was originally published July 29, 2020 at 8:01 AM.
