The NCAA’s Division I Council on Wednesday approved a 12-hour schedule model for teams not playing this fall that includes time for strength and conditioning, meetings and five hours of on-field activities with helmets per week.
The model aims to provide some structure and continued practice time to several conferences that have decided to postpone their seasons to the spring in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, including the Big Ten, Pac-12, Mountain West and Mid-American conferences.
“I don’t agree at all with the 12 hours,” Penn State coach James Franklin said earlier Wednesday during his news conference. “That makes no sense that other teams are going to be having a season, and we’re only going to get to work with our guys for 12 hours. You’ve got voting from basically all the different conferences, and right now, the only people voting in the best interests of the Big Ten are the people from the Big Ten.”
Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson called it a “good balance in terms of what people would like to do.”
“I think it’s a good compromise for those who say 20 hours, and those who say, no, 20 is too much, let’s go back to eight,” he told ESPN. “Folks can use it as their local health and safety policies and authorities allow you to do. We’ve got four of our Pac-12 teams — Cal, Stanford, UCLA and USC — who still can’t even go indoors and use footballs because the health authorities as of [Tuesday] afternoon to my knowledge have not granted the ability to go inside and hold those types of exercises.
“It will depend on where each of the medical communities are depending on the spread,” he said, “but I think 12 is an appropriate compromise that should allow everyone to accommodate what they need to do.”