Football Friday: COVID Testing, Recruiting Restrictions and More

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — There comes a time when negative is positive, and that's certainly the case when in comes to COVID-19 test results for returning student-athletes at Indiana.

First and foremost, the goal is to keep everyone healthy as we return to some sort of normalcy, and so far, Indiana has done just that.

It was encouraging news when Indiana reported Tuesday that no one tested positive for the coronavirus during the first 187 tests of players, coaches and staff since athletes started to return to campus on June 9. No other college has had perfect test results and some — like LSU, Clemson, Florida and others — have had positive test results in the dozens.

It hasn't happened by accident. Indiana had a plan, and everyone has followed it.

That's how you win this fight.

"It's been a pretty thorough process of trying to communicate from the very beginning,'' Indiana coach Tom Allen said. "In a mass way, we use email to get big messages out that everybody needs to hear, including the parents. We've had Zoom meetings with parents, we've had phone calls with parents, and open it up to them that any time you have questions at all, feel free to share any concerns that you have.

"Because the communication has been good, thorough and consistent, I would say we've had very few parents say 'Hey I don't want my son coming back. I don't feel safe. I don't feel he's going to be safe'. No one has said that or felt that way. There are concerns, for sure, You can't say that there's zero risk, you can't say that. There's risk in everything that we do. But you do everything at a high level of preparation and you follow all the medical experts and everything they say are the best practices.''

During recruiting, when coaches sit in living rooms, the pitch to parents that resonates the most is that they promise to take care of their children. This is no different. Parents are entrusting Indiana's coaches and staff to keep their kids safe, and that is a critical task.

"I think young people are pretty resilient, and I think they are pretty adaptable,'' Allen said. "We're a close team, so there's a lot of excitement (about being back on campus). I talked to a parent, and the mom was just like 'I just want to get him with you guys again. I know once he's back with you guys, everything is going to be OK'. We've got these guys back together, but at the same time, these things aren't going to go away.

"The COVID-19 situation, we're going to have to deal with it. I think when you're together with each other, that helps. That's going to help us. We're not isolated, we're all in this, and that's why I think is an important part of our process. We just focus on the next step, the next thing that's at hand, and we're able to truly move through this process step by step together. It'll help our guys feel better about all of it, and it'll help our parents feel good about it, and we can move forward together. That's part of growing up and we've got to teach them how to do that.''

Here's to hoping the good news continues. You're only as safe as your weakest link in these group situations, but it seems as though everyone has bought in so far.

Another month of restrictions

On Thursday, the NCAA's Division I Council Coordination Committee announced it has extended the recruiting dead period through Aug. 31 for all sports, including football.

The committee previously had extended the recruiting dead period through July 31 in on May 27, and they've been evaluating things on a month-to-month basis all along.

"The full Council and the Council Coordination Committee will continue to review the recruiting dead periods on a regular basis," the announcement read. "A dead period precludes all in-person recruiting. Phone calls and correspondence can continue to occur."

The Division I Council has extended the recruiting dead period: https://t.co/cGExRdbLrl pic.twitter.com/se3BFgg8wY
— NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) June 25, 2020

Indiana embraced the "Zoom recruiting'' model early, mostly out of necessity, but went ahead and looked at it as a positive. Not being able to travel has allowed them to work together more as a staff, because it frees up so much time. And the kids are so used to FaceTime and other ways to communicate face-to-face, and they adapt to it quickly, as well.

"These young people, they are so inclined to technology. They've adjusted very well to Zoom and Zoom meetings. We're always kind of FaceTiming anyway,'' Indiana cornerbacks coach Brandon Shelby said. "I think the biggest thing for them is we've got a lot more time on our hands at the house, so we bug them a lot more than we did maybe in the past. With the new rules allowing to call and FaceTime really is unprecedented this time of year, because typically you only get one phone call from April 15 to May 31. They've opened it up now to where we can communicate with them all the time.''

"This is how they communicate. Very rarely do young people really just sit and talk on the phone like we do. They FaceTime one another, which is crazy to me because you'll be sitting in the house and all of a sudden, a recruit just wants to FaceTime you and see you. Sometimes, I'll have to run into a different room and make sure everybody is decent. But at the end of the day, that's the craziest thing that's been going on.''

Football without family

Keeping everyone healthy on campus is important, but when it's time to go home, coaches are still very concerned about what they might bring back to their families. Some are going to great lengths to keep their families as safe as possible.

Penn State coach James Franklin has decided to have his wife and two daughters stay in their Florida home to start the fall instead of returning to Happy Valley. with him. Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson is doing the same.

Franklin is doing this to protect his daughter Addison, who has Sickle cell disease and a suppressed immune system, from being exposed to the coronavirus.

"There was was a lot of tears, a lot of emotion having this conversation," Franklin told HBO earlier this week. "So, there's a lot of heartache over it. Because of my daughter's illness, we've been on lockdown from the beginning. It's not something we've messed around with at all. We've been on total lockdown."

Clawson's wife is a cancer survivor, but her reduced white blood cell count makes her a higher risk of having complications if she contracts COVID-19. So the Wake Forest coach plans to isolate himself from her once training camp resumes in mid-July.

“When I’m working on a daily basis, coaching 110 to 120 players and having a staff of 50, I don’t know how I could go home at night and honestly tell my wife I couldn’t have come in contact with [the coronavirus],” Clawson told ESPN. “I love coaching, but I love my wife more. There’s no way I’m going to do anything that would put her at risk.”

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