High school football in spring? IHSA makes the call to switch seasons due to COVID-19
The announcement last week that, as part of the Illinois High School Association’s Return to Activities revised schedule for the upcoming season football was being moved to spring, caught many area coaches by surprise.
And that’s putting it mildly.
At a time of year when most high school coaching staffs are making last minute preparations for the first official day of practice in early August, coaches in football and other traditional fall sports, such as girls volleyball and boys soccer, must wait another five months to begin their seasons.
“Although we all want to play football this fall, the reality is, in the current situation, the scientists and the people who make those decisions are agreeing that it is just not safe to do so at this time,” Belleville East coach Michael Harrison said. “I think the decisions from the IHSA are much better than the alternative of totally canceling football and the other fall sports. At least this gives the student-athletes an opportunity to play at some point.”
But with the IHSA’s Return to Activities still needing the approval of the Illinois Department of Health, coupled with the ever-growing daily increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases around the state, nothing is certain.
At least the IHSA is doing what it can to give all high school athletes a chance to compete, some of the coaches concede.
“I am so grateful that our kids at least have a chance to play. I was so worried that it was just going to get the axe. I would have hated for our kids to miss a year of football,” Mascoutah coach Josh Lee said. “Not only our seniors for obvious reasons, but our lower level kids for developmental reasons as well. Who knows what the future holds, but at least we still have a chance of playing. And when we get our chance we will be ready to go.”
Back to the weight room and conditioning
While girls tennis, cross country and golf athletes will begin official practice Aug. 10, football players will continue working out in the weight room and on their conditioning for a condensed season which will run from Feb. 15-May 15.
Former Edwardsville High School and University of Illinois linebacker Joe Bevis is also getting a delayed start in his first season as head coach at Collinsville. One of three new head coaches in the area along with Austin Frazier (Althoff) and Jake Janek (Granite City), Bevis said the Kahoks will put the extra time to good use.
“We ended our summer contact days today (Thursday) and we set up a lifting schedule moving forward. We now have an opportunity to develop ourselves as athletes for another five or six months,’’ Bevis said. “It also gives the incoming freshmen time to adapt to the ways of high school long before any competitions start.’’
Triad coach Paul Bassler has an even easier answer to the new offseason conditioning issues.
“We will just flip our fall and spring workouts, so it will not have much of an affect,” Bassler said. “I was more worried about going into the fall season without having much of a summer. Now we will have more time to regroup going into February.”
Scheduling and issues over recruiting
Athletes in the winter, spring and summer will play shortened seasons with games and competitions limited to teams within the same COVID region or conference.
IHSA executive director Craig Anderson said schools are responsible for their own scheduling.
For programs in the Southwestern, Cahokia, Mississippi Valley and South Seven conferences, it means competing against league foes and filling out the remaining games against COVID region teams.
“Competing in a conference will definitely benefit us from a scheduling standpoint. Although having to re-do a schedule and find a game or two to fill is not the best-case scenario, every other program in the state is in the same boat,” Lee said. “We will just have to wait to see what the IHSA and what each conference decides to do.”
Collinsville, however, is competing as an independent after leaving the SWC for football only. Bevis, though, sees no issues in finding games.
“There are nearly 30 football programs in COVID Region 4,’’ Bevis said. “I hope that we can all find the competitions that we need to do all of our programs justice.’’
College recruiting could be problematic
An additional potential issue is that of colleges recruiting high school athletes. In the case of football, late winter and early spring is usually a time of heavy interest with players making on campus visits and coaches making in-home visits.
But this year will be different.
“This will have a major impact on the 2021 seniors who have not already been offered or made decisions on college,” Harrison said. “Outside of the BCS, most college football programs are canceling or moving their season to the spring as well. So the time of the year that is usually recruiting season and is normally marked with college coaches visiting the school and doing in-home visits will definitely change this year.
“However, as long as these schools are still fielding football teams, they will find a way to recruit. We’ve had a lot of communication with college coaches virtually this spring so they have a lot of the players’ information and evaluations already.”
