Improvise, adapt, and overcome. That may be the new mantra around the country for football coaches as their players come back to campus.
For the past three months, the Florida Gators have been trying to make the best out of a bad situation. The COVID-19 pandemic sent every student-athlete home, canceled seasons and championships, and forced every team to try and figure out a new normal.
For Dan Mullen, that meant trusting his strength and conditioning coordinator Nick Savage to work with more than 85 football players to figure out how each person, all with different access to weights, space, and conditions, could at least maintain their physical fitness and conditioning while quarantining at home.
As players come back to campus the first order of business was testing. To date, the Gators’ have not had a positive test for coronavirus from a student returning to campus. The next step was voluntary daily workouts, which haven’t been typical.
“Our guys haven’t been back very long on campus with the voluntary type workouts. I think we’ve been very slowly building back up,” Mullen said on a Zoom call with reporters on Tuesday. “I don’t know if we’ve really pushed anybody just yet. We want to make sure that the guys come back in great or that if the guys didn’t come back in great shape, I never want to put anybody in any sort of danger. I think we’ve been slowly building rather testing or pushing guys to see where we’re at, how great of shape we came back in.”
We're back. pic.twitter.com/Jjv6KRirMw
— Gators Football (@GatorsFB) June 13, 2020
Right now only Savage and the strength and conditioning staff can be in contact with the players. The coaching staff is still holding football meetings virtually with the players, where they can teach and go over film, but the staff can’t be involved with workouts or on-field drills.
Given the extenuating circumstances this offseason the NCAA is considering a proposal that will allow teams to get back into football sooner than a normal offseason.
“Really the big difference within the NCAA, is on July 24 through August 6th is the difference that they’re going to propose. So July 13th to July 24th will be the same rules all in summer. It is that period right now that the proposal is out there where we can have expanded meetings and walk throughs on the field,” Mullen said. “To me, that is really the opportunity for the players to prepare themselves mentally, get out there through walk throughs to start getting some muscle memory to prepare for the season and start doing movements that will be involved in during the season so that our guys can kind of be prepared rolling into training camp.”
Florida still plans on starting fall camp on August 7. Mullen hopes that the NCAA will allow for those two weeks on walk throughs with the players. It is his belief that getting that extra time will not only help the players acclimate but that it will also help keep players safe when they actually get into camp and pads come back on.
“I’m going to try to find the best way to safely develop our players,” he said. “To get them physically prepared and mentally prepared for the season while we’re keeping them with the No. 1 priority being their health and safety, keeping that in mind.”