Notre Dame Head Coach Open To Delayed Start Of Season
Brian Kelly remains confident that college football will be played this year, but during an interview with Mike Tirico on NBCSN’s Lunch Talk Live on Thursday, the Notre Dame head coach allowed for the possibility of a delayed start to the season.
Kelly noted that the lack of summer sessions on college campuses across the country will impact the starting date of summer workouts and therefore fall camp and possibly the start of the season.
“The longer we get out, the more it becomes what that starting date looks like so your football team is not put in jeopardy from a physical standpoint,” Kelly told Tirico. “And I just don’t mean skill development. I mean not putting a football team out there that is not in a cardiovascular position to compete at the highest level, is susceptible to soft tissue injuries and is at risk to not being at its full capacity.
“As we get longer into the summer, Mike, you’ll start to see where this may have to push the start of the season back.”
Kelly reiterated that if the players can get back to campus in early-July, it would be conceivable to play the current schedule, with the Irish set to open the season against Navy on August 29th.
However, he noted, “Anything that pushes later into July and into August, we’re going to have to make some adjustments.”
Kelly said himself and Notre Dame Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick have been looking at different models.
“There’s the potential that we could start as late as October and still get our 12-game schedule in without bye weeks and moving a little bit later into December because we don’t play a conference championship,” the coach said.
Kelly floated the idea of pushing the first four games on the Irish’s schedule – against Navy, Arkansas Western Michigan and Wake Forest – to the back of the schedule.
“If we started with Wisconsin on Oct. 3rd and went straight through the schedule and took the other games and didn’t have the bye weeks, because there are two bye weeks in there, and then went two weeks later into December, we could conceivably get all of our 12 games in,” he said.
That would be a dramatic change with loads of logistical hurdles to clear and even before something like that could be arranged, there would need to be a safe environment for all involved.
But Kelly believes it could be done.
“There’s really a lot of time here for us to work through the many things that are going to have to change; testing being one of them,” he said. “There’s going to have to be some modifications relative to the distancing and how we get fans into the game.
“So, there’s a lot that has to happen because we’re not just going to show up on July 1 and everything is back to normal. But I think we have plenty of time to be able to do that.”
Kelly said there may not be a national plan set yet, but Notre Dame is already looking at what will be necessary on its end.
“There’s got to be testing,” he said. “There’s got to be a new normal if you will. Those things will have to be in place before these games are played and I’m confident there are a lot of smart people that are going to be able to get this thing figured out.”
That opener against Navy is set to be played in Dublin, Ireland, but Kelly once again said discussions are already underway in case playing overseas isn’t feasible.
“They’re already looking at different plans, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, bringing it back on the mainland,” said Kelly, noting that decision doesn’t need to be made now, but options need to be in place for when it does need to be made.
As for the idea of playing with no fans in attendance, Kelly doesn’t sound crazy about it for a couple of reasons.
“I think it’s part of college football,” he said. “I think the fans and collegiate atmosphere and students are part of college football. I think they come back together.
“It can’t just be that Football is allowed to be back on campus and nobody else can be there. Eventually, you’re going to have to let students back on campus, that means they can be part of the games. So, eventually, this is going to have to be everybody is involved or nobody is involved.”
Kelly said, “Everything we do at Notre Dame is centralized around this unification of academics and athletics, so it would be hypocritical if it was just about football.”
“Yeah, we want to play,” he added. “It’s important, it’s part of our DNA, but it’s got to be one where we’re bringing everything back together as one.
“This is about bringing our University back as well.”
Kelly repeatedly underscored the fact that there is great flexibility and enough time to move things around.
“There’s a lot here in front of us, but what’s most important to know is that we have time to get this in order before we begin playing football and it doesn’t have to happen on August 29th. It can be a little bit later and we have three, four months to work on this.”