Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com MAY 2020 25 ing as best as possible — an exercise in futility when there are no facilities open. In addition, few players have personal equipment on par with a col- lege weight room, and position groups cannot congregate to practice together. Notre Dame's strength staff, led by director of sports performance Matt Balis, sent each player three resistance bands and accompanying workouts to do with them. Team nutritionist Kari Oliver does daily check-ins with players to "see where they are … who needs good meals, who's lacking." There's one catch: the NCAA, in a document released to schools in early April, said staff members "cannot su- pervise or conduct such workouts" and that players can't report them to coaches. They're essentially voluntary. Each offseason since Balis arrived in 2017, Notre Dame establishes Spring/ Summer Workout Accountability Teams (SWAT) and assigns a group of eight to 10 leaders to draft players. Nor- mally, these are designed to create com- petition in all offseason activity, from workouts to communal involvement to academics, and a winner is declared at the end of each offseason based on a point system. Now, those team leaders have assumed another role: keeping their team members in line and check- ing on their progress without it feeling like constant nagging. "We want it to be a program builder," Kelly said "It's that fine bal- ance and making sure they keep the players on their team to their stan- dard, but also rewarding them. That's been our focus in the last week or so. "Rewarding guys who have been doing a great job. … This is not about disciplining someone who misses a Zoom conference." Each position group holds meetings over Zoom. This is where actual foot- ball and X's and O's are discussed. Kelly said Notre Dame has done some offensive and defensive installation that has added to the playbooks. They can watch film on Zoom together. Notre Dame won't be able to prac- tice any plays until August training camp (if that starts on time). But Kelly saw install as important to do in the spring as usual so as not to add more items to fall camp, which he sees having more of a team-building emphasis than normal because of the time spent apart this spring. Kelly's sense, however, is that there has been no unraveling of bonds or commitment. "We're a lot more efficient," Kelly said. "We can do a lot more from a re- mote location than we ever could be- fore. That's the biggest thing. We're an adaptable creature in a sense. We can find ways to get through the most difficult times. "And as long as we're disciplined and we stay on this course, we're going to get through this and learn from it." ✦ Jack Swarbrick Wants Fans In The Stands This Year, But Understands The Steps To Get There Jack Swarbrick is no fan of having no fans at football games this fall. In an April 6 interview on ESPN's Paul Finebaum Show, the Notre Dame director of athletics dismissed the viability of a season without spectators. He is open to it only as a stopgap for a week or so. "Potentially I could see it starting that way," Swarbrick said. "Maybe you'd say, 'We're going to play a game or two that way.' I don't think you can conduct a season that way. I think spectators are too central to the experience. "I don't think it would be fair to the students. I don't like the idea of our game-day stadia just being television studios. They need to be alive with people in attendance." Swarbrick is understanding of larger questions looming and his role in answering them. He would like to see fans in the stands, but that decision or recommendation will be shaped and influenced by people outside the scope of college athletics. Any decision on spectators is still months away, and it's one that could be irrelevant altogether if the season has to be moved, shortened or canceled if the coronavirus pandemic is not controlled to the levels health officials deem safe enough to play games. Swarbrick is aware he might have a relative lack of say in that matter. Still, he has an idea of how the process of changing the season or leaving it as is will work, and the questions that will arise while sorting through the endless considerations. "There are two important parts" Swarbrick said. "The first is how a decision is to be made. We're so different from any other sport entity. You have individual conferences and schools who all have to come together in some form or fashion to figure this out. "Do we start the season if 60 percent of the members are in position to play but 40 aren't because the virus is too present in their state or community?" Unlike the sudden shutdown of sports that arrived without much warning March 12, the possibility of an effect on college football has been present amid the uncertainty of the pandemic's behavior, giving confer- ence commissioners and other administrators ample time to discuss contingencies. Notre Dame moved the first half of summer term — June 15 through July 6 — online and closed campus in the same manner as the spring semester. A ruling on the second half of the summer term will come May 15. "The decisions just cascade on each other," Swarbrick said. "That has a big implication for every coach and program. What does it mean for summer camps? What does it mean for students returning to campus? What does it mean for the start of practice? "Every day brings a new version of that. Some of it is new information you're getting from a national health authority or government agency. Some is from your own campus." Much like head coach Brian Kelly, one of Swarbrick's primary concerns is proper conditioning time before practice. Kelly, in a March SportsCenter interview, said in-person conditioning needs to start by July 1 for Notre Dame to realistically and effectively begin training camp in August. "We have to have a minimum of three weeks where we're just conditioning before we even think about conducting a practice," Swarbrick said. "Just those three weeks and three more weeks to prepare for football, that's a month and a half. "You have to know you're going to have that month and a half sometime around a month and a half before that. You're looking at a June 1 window where you have to get some decisions made." — Patrick Engel Swarbrick does not think a college football season without fans is viable. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA "We like the structure because structure is what our players want on a day-to-day basis. More than anything else, it's trying to get that structure in a distance environment." KELLY ON ESTABLISHING ROUTINES FOR HIS PLAYERS WHILE WORKING REMOTELY