David Cutcliffe on When Football Can Start

Duke coach involved in meetings on returning to the field

Coach David Cutcliffe isn’t sure how the coronavirus pandemic will impact the upcoming football season, but he’s trying to stay involved in the decision-making process. The first step before deciding when the games can start is deciding how long players need to practice before playing in games.

“The meetings I’ve been involved with, everything starts with player safety,” he said. “At this point, to speculate on a return date is hard. What we’ve done—I’ve been involved in a lot of meetings, some of them at the national level, where a coach’s role is to work with the medical people to know if we’re given six weeks (of practice before games start), here’s the plan. Here’s what we’d do to get a team ready over a six-week period. I think the minimum is probably four weeks, including a medical assessment. But you have to have a plan in place first, for preparation. When you realize what the preparation window is upon a return date, then you can start speculating what to do with a season.”

There are all kinds of rumors about the fate of the season, but Cutcliffe has a caveat:

“At this point there is nothing but people’s opinions,” he said. “I’ve heard a little bit of talk about shortened (season). I’ve heard a little bit of talk about playing within a conference (schedule only). I’ve heard talk about expanding the season to even if you started late, and I don’t believe this is going to happen, but you could see a fall/spring circumstance, potentially, which could be difficult. We all realize that.”