Watching College Football Was 'Painful' for Penn State's James Franklin
Penn State coach James Franklin found it "painful" to watch the Central Arkansas-Austin Peay football game Aug. 29. But hearing that Central Arkansas cleared two team-wide COVID-19 tests before its game Thursday against the University of Alabama-Birmingham made him hopeful.
"Watching somebody else play and hearing the reports about how the game went and the testing that took place and how that came out shows that you can do it," Franklin said Thursday. "And that's not easy, and it's going to be difficult. But there is a way for us to do this."
Franklin on Thursday made his 2020 debut on the Penn State Coaches Show, which normally would have previewed Saturday's season-opener. Instead, Franklin and Penn State Athletic Director Sandy Barbour spoke cautiously but hopefully about a potentially revived 2020 season.
Neither Franklin nor Barbour offered a timetable as to when, or if, a season might be held. Penn State resumed practice this week, and Franklin said that his team would need 4-6 weeks of a modified training camp to be ready for a potential season.
Franklin also sounded wistful at watching the game between Central Arkansas and Austin Peay without having one for which to prepare.
"At first, it's painful," Franklin said. "Because sitting at home on my couch watching somebody else play college football was painful. And then listening to the stuff that was being discussed at halftime by the announcers was hard to hear.
"But we had shown [at Penn State] that we had a model that was working. So that's why, when [the season] was shut down, it was difficult, because I think we had proven that we could make this thing work."
Since its teams resumed voluntary workouts in June, Penn State has reported 11 positive cases of COVID-19 among at least 1,273 tests of athletes. In a statement released Thursday by the Penn State College of Medicine, no athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 have been diagnosed with myocarditis.
Penn State returned to practice this week under the NCAA's updated 12-hour model that includes five hours of on-field work. Franklin has divided his team into separate practice groups to reduce the number of players on the field at the same time.
Franklin called the measure an organizational challenge but one that he's using to be cautious.
"I think you could probably do it in a little bit less [time] than that, but I think between 4 and 6 weeks that you can do it," Franklin said. "Our guys have been training all summer. Obviously for us to sit here and think that we would do a traditional training camp, you wouldn't because school has already started. It would be very different."
Barbour, who serves on the Big Ten's Return to Competition committee, said that she could not discuss a time frame because "things keep changing."
But she did note that the Big Ten is working on testing measures, calling them "real game-changers." The Pac-12 announced a new testing partnership Thursday.
"Things keep changing," Barbour said. "The good news is, there are now some things that are changing for the better for us."
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