The NCAA Division I Football Oversight Committee is expected to approve Thursday the long-talked-about six-week preseason practice plan, currently in the last stages of finalization, and recommend it to the NCAA D-I Council.
As reported by Sports Illustrated, the D-I Council would approve the final version of the plan at its next meeting on June 17. Under the current draft proposal, which was circulated among conference offices and athletic departments for feedback, ffootball coaches could begin normal required workouts including interaction with their players as soon as July 6. and conduct walk-through practices with a ball by mid-July.
Since June 1, the NCAA has allowed only voluntary workouts, as schools ease into a return of student-athletes to campus amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. During required workouts, athletes can spend six hours a week with the strength staff on weight training and conditioning and spend two hours with coaches for film study, SI reported. The required workouts would lead into what’s being termed as “enhanced” summer training, a two-week stretch constituting the first portion of the proposed six-week preseason practice plan.
According to SI, enhanced summer training allows 20 hours a week for athlete activities, including eight hours of strength training and film review, an hour walk-through practice each day and an hour of daily team meetings. A normal four-week preseason camp would begin after two weeks of enhanced training.
The start date of each of these activity segments — required workouts, enhanced training and preseason camp — is determined by a team’s first game. Those starting on Week 1, Labor Day weekend, could begin required workouts July 13, enhanced training July 24 and camp Aug. 7. For those starting a week before, on Week 0, activities can move up by a week. The final version of the plan could see slight adjustments in those dates.
As part of the preseason plan, a team must practice four weeks before playing its first game, a rule that could conceivably impact early season games if a program’s camp is interrupted by an outbreak. College officials have long expected that not all 130 FBS teams will start the season on time.
