Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com JAN. 1, 2021 7 UNDER THE DOME However, there is caution about how implementing this can create new problems — especially in re- cruiting. Plus, does one player receiving large compensation while other com- plementary or role players get over- looked create rifts or even jealousy in team chemistry? Does the student- athlete become a de facto employee of the institution? "There's going to be a lot to navi- gate through," Swarbrick admitted. "We have got to make sure it doesn't make an already unstable recruiting environment even less stable. "We've got to make sure it doesn't create unintended consequences where a decision by one student- athlete has a negative consequence for the rest of the student-athletes or the other members of his or her team. We want to maximize the value of it here out of it." TRANSFERS OF POWER On Dec. 16, the NCAA Division I Council officially permitted imme- diate eligibility for all college bas- ketball transfers this season, which included Notre Dame junior Trey Wertz, who starred the past two sea- sons at Santa Clara. Not everything has been uniform in this area, and it has shown even at Notre Dame. Whereas women's basketball player Dara Mabrey re- ceived her waiver earlier this fall that allowed her to be eligible for the Irish after transferring from Virginia Tech this summer, Wertz was still in limbo until Dec. 16. With this new measure, all Divi- sion I student-athletes, if eligible, are allowed to compete right away rather than have to sit out a season, as former Notre Dame safety Alohi Gilman did in 2017 after transferring from the Naval Academy. Gilman then starred in 2018-19 for the Irish, serving as a captain last year. However, the immediate eligibility status in football with transfer waiv- ers already had become prevalent — especially among quarterbacks, from Ohio State's Justin Fields (from Georgia) to Georgia's JT Daniels (from USC), or even Boston College's Phil Jurkovec (from Notre Dame). All were granted immediate eligibility without having to sit out a year. "I couldn't be happier that that's going to be available because I found nothing more distasteful in my re- cent dealings with the national rules than the waiver process surrounding transfers," Swarbrick said. "I think it was a system that encouraged young people to make really harmful mis- representations in order to try and gain a transfer [waiver]. "We should never have sent a message like that to students on a national basis. It became clear what you had to say to get your waiver granted." Swarbrick said he saw what amounted to disingenuous carbon copies of letters and petitions from applicants. "Just the grievance name was changed," he said. "They just took the facts from some other person and put it in their letter. Really, really un- seemly stuff that we encouraged by virtue of the national rule." WILL SPORTS BECOME CONFEDERATED? With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on collegiate athletic budgets, minimizing travel costs is a future goal among administrators. However, with the immense re- alignments of conferences in the last decade, "geography went out the window," per Swarbrick. "I think there will be a lot of dis- cussion about confederating sports — which I don't know how I feel about it right now," he said. "We need to have that discussion. Can we align more closely, for example, with the national governing bodies in some sports to continue to ensure opportunity for athletes, but perhaps spread the costs a little more effec- tively? Can we develop more part- nerships that help us?" What particularly bothers him is how universities bear 100 percent of the NFL's development costs and have no reciprocation from the NFL. "In all the other pro sports, those leagues bear some measure of de- velopment costs," Swarbrick said. "The NBA with the G-League, minor league hockey, minor league baseball. … We need to figure out how to have a more fair approach in football." ✦ Crisis Management Whatever the final results of the 2020 college football season hold, just the fact that Notre Dame, and so many others, were able to finish a regular season was its own form of championship in "The Year of COVID-19." Entering the Dec. 19 weekend, at least 131 Football Bowl Subdivision games had to be canceled or postponed. Notre Dame had its own setback in late September, but the 10-0 Fighting Irish entered the ACC Championship Dec. 19 ranked No. 2 thanks in great part to due diligence while managing the coronavirus crisis. Among the steps were housing management and rearranging it. "It became position critical," Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick said. "You couldn't have a group of offensive linemen, a group of tight ends — pick your position group — all living together because the housing would produce contact tracing if one student got sick. "We became very intentional about that once we saw the consequences in action." Next was meal management. "The No. 1 risk time is meals," Swarbrick said. "When you're seated in that environment and engaged in consuming food, it presents a special challenge." Thus, Notre Dame's entire support staff had some added roles in their job descriptions. "When we're on the road, we walk into that hotel, the buffet's already set up, it is staffed by members of our staff: strength and conditioning coach, Father Nate [Willis], by our nutritionists, by our recruiting personnel, and they're the ones serving us to minimize the risks," Swarbrick said. "You take it in the to-go container, you go directly up to your room and you don't leave your room." Engineering some other social engagement or settings was a challenge, and Swarbrick admitted certain situations "would drive me crazy" — transportation among them. "I'd see a group of student-athletes who faithfully wore their masks the entire time they were in the same building — and then four of them jump in the same car and take their mask off," he said. He was surprised at how the risk associated with practice and game competition was actually "very small." "We just didn't have evidence of transmission of the virus during those periods," he said. The Sept. 19 game versus South Florida was a prime example. It was later ascertained that Notre Dame had to have had some players who saw action in that 52-0 victory who were active with the virus, yet there was no transmission to USF. — Lou Somogyi