How the Stanislaus District football season may look, and what coaches are thinking
The start of the 2020 high school football season is less than three months, not that I am counting or anything.
Preparation for the season — which is scheduled to start Friday, Aug. 21 — began in January when teams started their offseason workouts.
But, due to the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the CIF to cancel the spring sports season, there are a lot of unknowns heading into the upcoming season such as when the season will start, will fans be allowed, when can teams start to practice, and more.
Lets dive into the big questions.
A reduced regular season schedule?
Will DeBoard, the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Assistant Commissioner, said in his talks with coaches and athletic directors, “not one” feels the fall sports season will be normal.
The NFL has reportedly discussed starting its season on Oct. 15 with the Super Bowl being pushed back until Feb. 28, 2021 according to the Sports Business Journal.
The current section football championships are scheduled for Nov. 27-28 and DeBoard said the season can be extended until Dec. 19. If that happens, that means there will most likely not be any state championship games.
The section could create an all-league season or eliminate part of the non-league season.
Although, they all want the full season, most Stanislaus District coaches said “2-3” non-league games is enough to get prepared for the league season.
“It’s a heck of a scenario,” Escalon coach Andrew Beam said about a possible seven or eight game season. “The Trans-Valley League doesn’t drop off too much this year and a league title doesn’t get any easier.”
Big Valley Christian has only three league games this year and Big Valley coach Brian Berkefeld said it wouldn’t be a huge impact.
Another possibility is reducing the playoff brackets from 12 to eight teams and also allowing the non-playoff teams to play one extra game.
None of these ideas have been talked about yet as the CIF hasn’t discussed fall sports and DeBoard said there isn’t a set deadline for when the fall sports schedule will be decided.
“I hope we don’t have to lose any games,” Canepa said. “We have enough time to play football. When we start, I don’t know.”
Fans at games?
Downey junior Cortez Rush said there is nothing like playing at Chuck Hughes Stadium.
“We always have a big crowd,” Rush said. “We have a DJ play and use that fan energy on the field.”
However, under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s four-stage plan, big events like concerts and live audience sporting events are the final stage. Rush could play his final season of home games with no fans.
When they resume, the MLB and NBA have both reportedly discussed games without fans.
Ben Van Dyk’s son, Tyler, will be a senior quarterback/safety at Central Catholic and he said it will be hard not to possibly watch his son play football.
“I love watching him play and compete as part of a team,” Van Dyk said.
Van Dyk did say if no fans were allowed but the season happened and Tyler was competing and playing a sport he loves to play, it would be OK.
Financially, having no fans will be tough for schools, said Pitman Athletic Director Dave Walls.
“The largest amount of fans are able to attend football games,” Walls said. “You are going to make athletic departments a lot of working capital from football games. If we got to that point, we still have to pay for our officials and have emergency response on site so there are still going to have some economic outlay from the athletic departments to run the football game.”
Walls also said the atmosphere and energy would be lost without fans.
“It’s a pageantry win, lose, or draw,” Walls said. “You always have a nice crowd on a Friday night.”
The decision on fans is another discussion the CIF will need to have but will probably be decided by government guidelines on mass gatherings.
“Sometimes you wonder what you are playing for and the people who look forward to seeing you play,” Downey senior wide receiver Sonny Dixon said. “It would be different without them.”
Some schools with bigger rosters might have to split up their practices to avoid having large gatherings.
Social distancing in football?
Most counties have social distancing guidelines which require people to be at least six feet apart from each other in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
You can’t really do social distancing in football unless you plan on giving up a lot of touchdowns.
Rush said he wasn’t worried about social distancing when football resumes because when the team can practice again, it means “everything” is under control.
“It’s so much of a technical sport and physically hard to play without contact,” he said.
Rush said his parents had no reservations about him playing football again and Van Dyk said he has no fears about his son when football resumes.
Dixon isn’t nervous either.
“You aren’t really breathing on people and not forced to stand next to each other (during practice),” Dixon said.
Spring and Summer practices?
While most schools don’t have spring practices, some would have started May 1.
Schools are closed and coaches have sent workouts to their players and met on Zoom.
“We are going to keep it as close as we can to reason,” Modesto coach Dylan Miller said. “In May, we would have started spring ball and not having face-to-face is the biggest negative. Next week, we are going to have digital practices and get on Hudl and assign film to them.”
Before the school closed, Berkefeld said his coaching staff took weights from the school weight room and delivered them to some of his players.
“We have an app and post at-home workouts and we are able to check to see if they are doing the workouts,” Berkefeld said.
Escalon coach Andrew Beam said each of his coaches have eight or nine players to check in with, making sure they are doing the workouts.
The summer season begins June 1 and goes until July 5 and during that period is where teams establish their offensive and defensive schemes, continue to lift weights, practice tackling techniques (tackling not allowed during summer), and participate in 7-on-7 tournaments.
The start of summer practices on June 1 seems unlikely and 7-on-7 tournaments probably won’t be happening next month.
Some coaches think they will be able to start summer practices on June 1 while others aren’t as confident.
“Everyone is in the same boat,” Downey coach Jeremy Plaa said.
For Downey, which will start a new quarterback after Bryce Gouker graduates, the summer period is important and Plaa said the four weeks is when he planned to evaluate the quarterback position.
The 7-on-7 tournaments are a critical part of the offseason process.
“It allows our kids to go out and compete,” Beam said. “They look forward to playing some of these other teams and it’s a good time to work on our weaknesses.”
Confident even if no summer period
While there is a three-week window in July (dead period is scheduled from July 6 to July 26) where the CIF could examine allowing teams to practice if there is no summer period, each coach I talked to said if their teams can start practicing on July 27 (first official fall practice), they would still feel comfortable with three weeks of practice before the season starts.
“We don’t need the whole summer to get ready,” Central Catholic coach Roger Canepa said. “You start at the end of the July and you’d be ready for the first game.”
A CIF rule states that a school can’t participate in a game until a team has had at least 14 days of practice.
If there isn’t a summer period, the group that will be impacted is the incoming freshman class.
“The incoming freshman is what I stress about the most,” Plaa said.
Plaa said normally they’d have face-to-face meetings in May but now are sending postcards with video and YouTube links.
Whenever schools are able to have their first workouts, area coaches are telling their players to remain in shape.
“It’s our challenge to the kids,” Miller said. “We have given them all the tools we can to succeed and workout safely. If you aren’t working out, it’s going to be fairly tough.”
