When the California State University system announced Tuesday that classes would be held virtually in the fall, many saw immediate ramifications for college football. Fortunately for football fans in San Diego, the new rule likely won’t wipe out the college football season.
In an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego State’s director of athletics John Wicker provided reason for optimism that the campus will hold sports in the fall. In fact, SDSU’s football players will likely be among the first students to return to campus.
“I don’t know that it necessarily impacts us at all,” Wicker said, via The San Diego Union-Tribune. “We knew that we were going to be in some form of virtual classes this fall, anyway. They’re definitely still going to have classes on campus.”
SDSU is currently working on plans to slowly bring its student-athletes back to campus with July 7 viewed as a target date. By bringing some student-athletes back for the start of the summer session, with classes that have to be held in-person, SDSU can slowly integrate its measures to ensure student safety.
The university would first begin by bringing football players back as a “test case,”, per Wicker, allowing them to return to school to train and work on their conditioning. By bringing football players back in July, it would give them enough time to prepare for practices in August.
SDSU is still developing its safety measures for social distancing in training rooms and on the practice field, but it will create protocols to ensure the health of its student-athletes. Among the possibilities, having players fill out a questionnaire each time they arrive for a workout and using PPE regularly.
The Aztecs will need all the practice time they can get under head coach Brady Hoke. The former Michigan Wolverines coach returned to San Diego State as a defensive line coach in 2019 and took over this offseason after Rocky Long stepped down.