NCAA Approves Six-Week Preseason Practice Plan

The NCAA Division I council approved a six-week preseason practice plan ahead of the 2020 season on Wednesday. 

Required summer workouts could begin as early as July 6 for certain schools, per Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger. Schools were allowed to begin voluntary workouts on campus on June 1.

“This is the culmination of a significant amount of collaboration in our effort to find the best solution for Division I football institutions,” Shane Lyons, the Division I council chair and director of athletics at West Virginia, said in a statement. “Our student-athletes, conference commissioners, coaches and health and safety professionals helped mold the model we are proposing.”

Start dates for each phase of a school's offseason program will correspond with the date of its first game. If a team is slated to open its season on Sept. 5, players could participate in "up to eight hours of weight training, conditioning and film review per week," beginning on July 13, per the NCAA. From July 24 to Aug. 6, that would increase to 20 hours per week. 

Programs across the nation have already begun voluntary offseason workouts amid the COVID-19 crisis, though some have run into complications. Houston suspended all voluntary workouts on June 12 after six student-athletes tested positive for the coronavirus.