Lane Kiffin Has A Unique Idea That Could Help Keep Ole Miss Football Virus-Free
This offseason is so bizarre that it has football guys thinking the best way to prepare for a football game is by not even practicing football.
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, while appearing on RebTalk on Thursday evening, presented a few interesting ideas on how to approach a strange season with so many lingering question marks due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
One of those ideas in particular stood out: is it better simply to have a healthy, virus-free team than to get your normal amount of practice reps? It's an idea the Rebel staff is bouncing around.
"Maybe that means you don’t even practice as much because you don’t want kids close to each other," Kiffin said. "I’ve even thought about things like, maybe there would be times in the season where we just walk through and keep our space and not even practice. It’s going to make us not play as well but we’ll have more players than the other team."
According to new standards that Sports Illustrated obtained on Thursday, football players in Power 5 conferences will be tested for COVID-19 every week, approximately 72 hours before competition. Those who test positive will have to isolate for at least 10 days and those with "high risk" contact with those positive cases will have a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
It's not hard to imagine, based on these mandatory protocols, that a viral outbreak could wipe an entire position group out for a game.
This leads Kiffin and Co. to think: is it worth not even risking that?
"That’s one of the problems in figuring this out. How are you going to follow quarantine rules when your quarterback gets (COVID)?" Kiffin said. "Then the whole room is shut down for 14 days. How do you even do that?"
To this point, the Southeastern Conference is still set on playing football in the fall. The ultimate decision on that front will be made in the coming three weeks.
For now, the SEC, Big 12 and ACC are making decisions in lockstep. One of the most common ideas thrown out to maintain a sense of non-conference scheduling is to form a sort of alliance between the three conferences. Under those formats, teams would play one to two non-conference games within those conference 'allies' on top of the eight game conference slate.
Indecision and fluidity of decision making is difficult on coaches and players. For now, they're back at practice. Will they start on time or at all this fall? That much is still up in the air.
"We’d like to play normal and have a full schedule. These other conferences, saying they need to go conference only and stuff, that’s creating some issues," Kiffin said. "In my opinion that’s too early to call that because we don't know. Just like we didn’t know months ago. No one thought this would still be going on. It might still be going on two years from now. So whatever they tell us we can do, we’ll be ready to role.”
More From The Grove Report:
Trey Washington, High School Coach Open Up Ole Miss Commitment
The SEC's Latest: A 10 Game Schedule With Conference Alliances?
Behind Enemy Sidelines: Updating Fall Sports, Flimsiness of Commitments and Projected SEC Finish
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