As BC Continues Practice, Staff Aims To Keep Players Fresh

Hafley lays out what he is doing to keep players fresh during the summer camp that is longer than usual

Boston College camp has been going strong now for ten practices. Today the team had the day off, after six straight days of work. Not only has these practices been unique because of the COVID19 precautions, but the amount of practices have increased. With BC starting roughly around the time they did last season, they will have to wait until September 19th for their first game against Duke (unless BC schedules an OOC game to fill the cancelled Ohio game). That is roughly three more weeks of practice before the team sees the field. 

Head coach Jeff Hafley has created a system to help pace out the practices, and not burn the players out too quickly telling reporters:

"So, we don't feel it's necessary right now to go hard, hard, hard, hard, off. We're keeping the mindset of we're going really hard one day. It is full-go and all out. Then the next day we kind of slow it down, but speed it up mentally. Then the next day full speed ahead. Then the next day we slow it down physically, but ramp it up mentally. So, I'm not going two hard days in a row right now where it's just physical, physical, physical."

This system is why the school has been sending out player reports only sporadically in their daily reports. Given the length of the camp, Hafley went on to say that it would be a while before the team started structured scrimmages. "We're going to have like a minicamp where we are going hard and we are scrimmaging and doing all those types of things. We just feel like we don't need to do that at this point."

On top of keeping the players physically fresh, he has to take care of them mentally as well. You can see the players are trying their best to stay loose with creative position entrances to practice (offensive lineman have a belly slap competition) or the energy they have with coaches after a big play. 

With the players all cooped together in dorms, they need outlets for non-football related fun as well. On Friday, Hafley and the coaches booked the school's pool and had a movie night where the team got to watch the newest Bad Boys movie. By attending to this part of life, Boston College coaches are doing their best to prevent bubble burnout. 

The players return to practice tomorrow. BC Bulletin will be have full reports along with player availability.

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Photo and video courtesy of BCEagles.com