Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly sure wasn’t shy about making his thoughts known about the comments made by ESPN analyst regarding the immediate future of college football.
Of course, thanks to the spread of the novel coronavirus, several sports leagues across North America and the world have completely paused their day-to-day operations in an effort to flatten the curve of the illness.
Herbstreit was extremely skeptical, saying that “he’d be shocked” if college football was played this fall.
Cue Brian Kelly:
“Yeah, I heard Kirk Herbstreit come out last week and say, ‘There’s no way (we play),'” Kelly said. “Kirk does not know what he’s talking about. For him to talk in those terms, he’s not a scientist. He’s a college football analyst. We’ll let the scientists determine those things. We’ll prepare and know what we need to do and put things in place knowing full well that we’ll need some preparation time, but we’re going to stay positive and prepare as if we’re going to have a season in the fall.”
Well, that clears that up. However, Notre Dame’s coach did seem to understand that there would be an necessary start date that would coincide with the safety of all those involved.
“To me, I think July 1 (is the telling date)” Kelly said. “If you can’t start training your football team by July 1, you’re going to need at least four weeks. Strength and conditioning coaches are going to want six. Sports medicine is probably looking at four to six weeks. I think the realistic goal here is a minimum of four weeks of conditioning before you put them in camp. College football is going to be affected if we’re not playing in 90 days, in terms of the conditioning element, and getting these young men ready.”
Whose side are you on in this debate?
– – Quotes via Dean Straka of 247 Sports Link
