Notre Dame adjusts to COVID new world
It sounds more shopping mall than football field, with talk of hydration kiosks and omnipresent cleaning supplies.
Welcome to the world of opening college football practice in the COVID-19 era, with Notre Dame initiating this week its 11th preseason camp with Brian Kelly at the program’s helm.
“I’d say probably the biggest thing is you have your own water bottles, so they’re positioned at kiosks throughout the field, that is your bottle,” Kelly told reporters Thursday afternoon on a ZOOM video conference. “Whereas in years past, you know you had a number of different athletic trainers handing out water. And so our weight loss, for example, was exponentially different after a practice like yesterday than it has been at any other time since I’ve been here. Generally we’ll have between six and eight players lose about 3% body-weight; we had 15 to 17. Now, you know, at first glance you’d be, ‘Oh my God, how are you going to battle this?’ But we had all day to work on getting that water-weight back. That’s a small thing, but it’s important to keep an eye (because) you can’t continue to lose over 3% of your body-weight in water-weight because it’s going to start to affect you. So, that’s one thing.
“I think spraying the footballs down with a disinfectant virtually after every throw, with our managers, to help reduce the spread. I think those two things probably stand out the most to me. Other than of course every coach has got to have a mask on and having our players have a mask with them around their neck at all times, so if they do take their helmet off, they’ve got to try to pull a mask up. It’s recommended that they wear it; we know it’s not possible for them to have a mask on at all times but anytime that they can we’re strongly recommending it.”
The Fighting Irish on Friday are set to begin adding pads to their practices as they navigate the standard NCAA acclimatization period. Notre Dame also is wrapping up its first week of fall semester classes and the return of students to campus for in-person instruction for the first time since March.
Kelly points to his program’s approach in strict adherence to both federal and university COVID-19 protocols for enabling the football team to be in position for a potential 2020 season as a temporary ACC member. Notre Dame is scheduled to play 10 ACC games and open its season at home against Duke on September 12.
“I think they clearly understand that their human behavior has put them in a position for the university to feel as though they can trust their student-athletes to make good choices and good decisions,” said Kelly. “And that the overall kind of atmosphere here is that we’re all in. In other words, both students and student-athletes, we’re all in to see that we have a football season. And so I think that they earn that trust in the six weeks leading up to the school starting here. I think our administration was making a decision as to what kind of behavior our football team would have, what kind of attention to detail they would have, and I think they showed that this is very difficult but if we give them great healthcare and understand that we need great procedures and protocols and have all the things that are necessary to take care of our student-athletes and our staff that we can do this.
“I think that (foundation), coupled with the fact that they’re in a very safe environment here, that being involved in this program is very safe.”
Notre Dame has revealed some new cases of COVID-19, saying, in part, “we can share with you that the vast majority of the positive cases appearing in the University’s dashboard this week can be traced to a SINGLE off-campus gathering. The students involved were forthcoming in sharing information with contact tracers. They shared who they interacted with, when, and for how long. They also indicated individuals at the gathering were both outside and inside, together for some time, not wearing masks, in a crowded space, and drinking.”
In talking with reporters, Kelly drove home the benefits he perceives for his players by having them on campus here in South Bend.
“If they left the program [to go home, for virtual learning], look, the pandemic and the virus is still not going away,” Kelly said. “You have to wear a mask and you have to social distance. You still have to do all the things that you would have to do in this program; it doesn’t change things for you.
“We just have more guidelines. We have more safety checks for you, we have specialists for you, we have testing for you, we have a lot of other things to care for you within the program.”
