The NCAA Division I Council on Wednesday approved a 12-hour schedule model for teams not playing this fall, which includes time for strength and fitness, meetings, and five hours of field activities. with helmets per week.
The council also advised that all athletes of the fall sport this season free themselves from their eligibility so that they will not lose it, no matter how many games they participate in.
West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons, chair of the NCAA’s Football Oversight Committee, said the athletes would have six years to use five years of eligibility, and it would not matter if they decided to wear redshirt. The proposal must be approved by the Division I Board of Directors, which meets on Friday afternoon.
No changes have been made to the current transfer rules, and the recommendation for eligibility will not affect transfer, Lyons said.
The 12-hour model is currently in place from Aug. 24 to Oct. 4, Lyons said, and the oversight committee will continue to consider what a practice will look like and return it to the department’s board in September. present.
The plan, which was approved on Wednesday, aims to give some structure and time for ongoing practice to several conferences that have decided to extend their seasons until the spring in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, including the Big Ten, Pac-12, Mountain West and Mid-American conferences.
Lyons said the 12-hour rule was a compromise, and that the oversight committee felt 20 hours was too much in the fall, especially since the athletes hope to compete in the spring. Coaches can use the five hours of activity on the field each week at their own discretion, which means they can go one hour a day, and two hours another day if they want, but no contact is allowed.
The teams can’t do 11-on-11 or 7-on-7 drills, but it can be more than a walk through. Lyons pointed out that for the players who have returned to their seasons after the spring, it could be more than a year before they play an actual football match.
“You can go at a faster speed,” Lyons said. “You can run your offensive schedule, you can run your defensive schedule, but it’s not 11-on-11 and that’s all. Most of the schools will do what they did in the summer, they will go through schedules and games and things go well, but a lot of it will be individual drill work with your D-backs, your offensive line, defensive line. “
However, some coaches like Penn Frank’s James Franklin were looking for more time this fall.
“I totally disagree with the 12 hours,” Franklin said earlier in his news conference Wednesday. “That does not make sense that other teams will do a season, and we will only work 12 hours with our boys. You have voted from basically all the different conferences, and now, the only people who are in the best interests of ‘ the Big Ten vote, the people are from the Big Ten. “
Arizona State Athletic Director of Arizona Ray Anderson called it a “good balance in terms of what people want to do.”
“I think it’s a good compromise for those who say 20 hours, and those who say no, 20 is too much. Let’s go back to eight,” he said. “People can use it if their local health and safety policies and authorities allow you to. We have four of our Pac-12 teams – Cal, Stanford, UCLA and USC – who can not even get inside and use football to ” t the health authorities as [Tuesday] afternoon, I have, to my knowledge, not allowed the opportunity to go in and hold these types of exercises.
“It will depend on where each of the medical communities depends on the spread,” he said, “but I think 12 is an appropriate compromise that should allow everyone to comply with what they have to do.”
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