Jeff Brohm is a man of action.
When the Purdue coach learned the Big Ten was postponing the 2020 season, he was crestfallen.
"Like our team and probably all teams across the Big Ten, I was very disappointed and very hurt by the decision," Brohm said today. "It was something we didn’t want to happen."
Brohm wasn't gonna sit idly by.
"After letting it kind of sink in, there are two things you can do: You can whine about it, or you can try to do something about it."
Mr. "Let's Play Football" did something about it ... in a big way. He got busy on Tuesday formulating a plan to play in 2021. Less than two days later, Brohm was done.
On Thursday morning, the fourth-year Boilermaker boss unveiled his personally authored "2021 Spring Football Proposal." The nine-page document (see above link) offers specifics and nuance to executing not just a 2021 spring season, but also a 2021 fall season.
The stakes for universities are high, as millions of dollars are on the line from lost TV and game-day revenue. Football needs to be played, but the COVID-19 pandemic that caused the Big Ten--and Pac-12--to postpone the 2020 season shook many to the core ... including Brohm. Meanwhile, the SEC, ACC and Big 12 continue to move forward on the 2020 season.
"If there is a better plan, I am all for it," said Brohm, who says the Big Ten is working on its own plan.
"I know the Big Ten is working hard at getting that done.," said Brohm. "And I am gonna fully support what we come up with."
Brohm has provided a good starting point for decision-makers across the Big Ten. His plan has been sent to conferene coaches and administrators to examine. And there is a lot to digest.
"I didn’t know where we were gonna go in the Big Ten because there was no backup plan ready," said Brohm. "And I wasn’t interested in waiting. I was interested in being proactive and doing my part to put something together."
Brohm proposes an eight-game 2021 spring season that will start Feb. 27 and end April 17. The fall season would be 10 games and commence Oct. 2 and end Dec. 11.
Training camp for the spring season would run six weeks (two-week buildup and four week camp) from Jan. 16-Feb. 26. There also is a plan for the postseason, including a four- and six-team playoff and a possible Big Ten title game.
After the spring season, players would be given a “full discretionary period” with up to three months off. There would be no mandatory workouts during that time. Work would pick back up July 19 and run six weeks. After a week off, training camp for fall 2021 would begin Sept. 4.
The 10-game fall season would run Oct. 2-Dec. 11 and include one off week. The postseason would run Jan. 1-15 and again would include a four- and six-team playoff and a possible Big Ten title game.
"It was a long process," said Brohm. "I had a lot of people help me on the sports staff here and get me some information and gather it. You put it on paper as fast as we could. I’m not claiming it has all the answers. I felt like it was a good starting point that I believe in and believed could actually work if we are truly trying to allow these guys to get in a college football season."
Health and safety of the players is at the forefront of the proposal. To that end, there would be just one padded practice per week during the spring and fall seasons. And following the 2021 fall season, there would be no traditional spring practice in 2022. Just conditioning work, weight training and walk-throughs. No pad work.
Brohm says he has gotten good feedback so far from his peers on a plan that if pulled off would help schools solve some potentially vexing scholarship and eligibility problems.
"Spring football also clears up a lot of things as far as eligibility and scholarship issues," said Brohm. "If we don’t find a way to play, we have some hard, difficult decisions our administration has to figure out … so this could cure that."
Brohm knows top talent and potential first-round picks could opt out and want to get ready for the NFL draft. The Big Ten already has seen a raft of top players do that, including Purdue's Rondale Moore.
"But there’s gonna be a whole lot of other people that want to play," said Brohm, who thinks the NFL could consider moving back its traditional April draft to June to accommodate spring football.
But a big question looms: Will the virus be under any better control than it is now in early 2021?
"I would hope in another five, six, seven months we could have better answers," said Brohm. "If we aren’t gonna have them by then, we have some issues. I think this gives you a lot of time to get answers, testing, contact tracing, protocols, learn from the NBA, Major League Baseball, the NFL, a lot of sports that are playing. And learn how to improve upon that and make sure we are doing our part.
"As far as I know, even our conference, before we shut it down, I’m not for sure all the schools had enough testing to last them through the year. That was a concern. I know there were contact-tracing issues everywhere where some people were truly abiding by it. Others weren’t doing it. Was there any consistency there? Because we had numerous people knocked out for considerable time. And we really didn’t have a whole lot of issues here."
Brohm's proposal offers a possible solution. And perhaps best of all, it offers hope for football in 2021.
"I do feel it was important to get some optimism out there for a spring plan," said Brohm. "... I thought it was important I put together my thoughts as well as I could with statistics and numbers behind it to prove that it can be done if we really wanna do it.
"If there is a better plan, I am all for it."
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