James Franklin is not a happy man.
It’s bad enough that his Penn State team won’t be able to play this fall. But it also will be limited in practice, too, as the Big Ten churns toward a reported hoped-for eight-game winter season that would begin in January 2021.
Last week, the Division I Council approved the NCAA Football Oversight Committee recommendation to permit teams whose conferences postponed the 2020 season to practice 12 hours a week this fall. Five of those hours can be spent on the field in contactless drills and seven can be spent in strength and conditioning work along with meetings. There are two mandatory days off, and a four-hour daily limit on athletics activities is included, too.
“We put a plan together but it was based on 20 hours. I don't agree at all with the 12 hours,” said Franklin. “That makes no sense that other teams are going to be playing a season and we're only going to get to work with our guys for 12 hours.”
This fall practice model is a compromise of sorts that is a middle ground between the typical 20-hour-a-week in-season standard and the eight-hour-a-week offseason model.
“It didn't make a lot of sense,” a Big Ten head coach told GoldandBlack.com off the record. “They’re definitely wanting to try and get that remedied. I would be surprised if that doesn’t change.”
The new fall practice model took effect on Monday, Aug. 24, and runs through Oct. 4. The committee intends to further study the issue to determine appropriate levels of countable athletics activity for the remainder of the year. The hope of many Big Ten coaches is to have a fall practice model that approximated typical spring practices, with a weekly allowable hour range from 16-20 hours.
Alas, the measure approved by the NCAA that calls for a 12-hour week falls way short of what Franklin feels is needed. The Nittany Lions coach felt representatives from competing conferences on the NCAA Oversight Committee didn’t necessarily share his vision for what fall practices should look like.
“I can't understand how us being able to work with our student-athletes for 12 hours when other people are getting the full season, how that's in the best interest of college football, how that's in the best interest of our student-athletes, how that's in the best interest of the Big Ten, and specifically at Penn State,” Franklin said.
Once October comes, don’t be shocked if the Big Ten practice rules are altered to accommodate more time and intensity.
“That’s why I'm not all bent out of shape right now with the 12-hour rule, at least initially,” said a head coach. “October and November become a June and July, in my mind, as we get ready for the season. So, that's where it really becomes critical, and we can be more aggressive.
“You also have to realize you're trying to get your guys to work in an incremental slope to get to where you don't need too much too soon. To go out and go into full practices right now doesn't make a lot of sense.”
For now, the Big Ten coaches must work with the plan.
"Whatever they tell us to do, we'll do it,” said a head coach. “But, I wish they would give us more flexibility. But, again, once October gets here, then we need to be able to start being more aggressive in regards to what we do skill work-wise and football-wise with our team.”
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