Texas Longhorns Coaching Staff Adapting to New Schedule
The NCAA oversight committee approved a six-week practice plan leading up to the return of college football.
“This is the culmination of a significant amount of collaboration in our effort to find the best solution for Division I football institutions,” said Shane Lyons, chair of the committee and athletics director at West Virginia. “Our student-athletes, conference commissioners, coaches and health and safety professionals helped mold the model we are proposing.”
The model will allow up to eight hours of film, conditioning and weights from July 13-23. The next two-week period from July 24-Aug. 6 will add six hours of walk-throughs and use of actual footballs.
That will be followed by a traditional fall camp with normal practice rules applying up to the season opener.
Texas head coach Tom Herman expressed disappointment that the new schedule wouldn't include some practice time to make up for a lack of spring football this past year.
“I was hoping — for a lot of us that were not able to participate in spring practice — that we would have the ability to have some sort of full-speed activity," Herman said. "Every proposal that I've seen thus far shows a lot of walkthroughs, a lot of meetings, but no real 11-on-11, 7-on-7, full-speed activities. That was disappointing."
While Herman isn't completely happy with the plan, he and his staff are preparing for unexpected challenges leading into the season.
“For 25 years, I've known what my January looks like, I've known what my February looks like, I know what my March looks like, April, May, June, July, and this thing has completely turned everything that I know on its head,” Herman said. “I think the biggest thing for us as coaches in the planning of getting ready for the season — we just want the information to be given to us as quickly as possible.
“I get that the powers that be want to make sure that they get it right the first time and I applaud them for that, but we're sitting there (Wednesday) in a three-hour meeting — this is real — we basically planned off of a proposal that hasn't even been approved yet and that only got us through July 9,” he added. “It's like, 'July 9?' For 25 years, I could have told you what July 9 is going to look like in January. We're sitting here in the middle of June talking about what July 9, or 10th, or 11th is going to look like for our team. That's a bit unsettling for everybody. We understand and we've adapted and we understand that that's the way things are going to be for quite some time."
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