Kyle Whittingham: Staying Healthy Is Biggest Challenge This Season

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Utah football is back and the team getting is players ready for a once in a lifetime season that was postponed but will be back on November 7.

The schedule is not out yet so the Utes are just ramping up practice in preparation for this seven-game season. Without knowing an opponent, Utah is working on becoming the best team they possibly can.

This fall camp is taking a lot of planning – down to the very last detail to make sure that the Utes can play football and with a full team. Head coach Kyle Whittingham joined KSL Unrivaled and explained how safety is the biggest priority to ensure camp goes smoothly, but it is a long process even with the rapid testing.

“We have that new test that is a daily test, that it’s a rapid return test, that you get the results within 45 minutes to an hour,” Whittingham said. “It takes longer than that for the whole process because we have 120 guys that we got to test and get through the whole deal. “So, it’ll probably take about three hours from start to finish by the time we can test everybody and get a result back. But we’re going to test every day in the morning, and you got to be clean to be able to practice and participate that afternoon.”

.@UtahCoachWhitt says the testing process can take about three hours from start to finish. pic.twitter.com/HKC4vmBYxn

— KSL Unrivaled (@KSLunrivaled) October 2, 2020

In addition to doing their best to stay away from contracting COVID-19 is the prospect of other injuries since there is just over a month until the first game, and the amount of full 11 on 11 contact is likely going to be limited.

Just look at the NFL – there have been a lot of soft-tissue and other injuries due to lack of practicing actual football with the exception of game day. This is something that the Utah staff is well aware of and doing its best to limit those injuries.

“You get things that come up every year, hamstrings, concussions, and those type of things. Now you combine that with the COVID-19 stuff,” Whittingham said. “Staying healthy is going to be even more of a factor than ever before.  We’ve had very few positives in our program since testing began.

If Utah can have few players test positive for COVID-19 then they will be able to practice in a typical fashion and hopefully avoid injuries.

Educating Players Is Key

Across the country, there have been outbreaks of COVID-19 and subsequent contact tracing has canceled and postponed games in the first month of the college football season. The University of Houston has had five tries at a game but none of them have been played due to positive tests or contact tracing.

So, Whittingham and his staff are making sure his players are educated to help their players make the best decisions that will not only help them be safe and healthy to be able to play football but also their teammates and anyone associated with the team from getting sick.

Whittingham specifically mentioned no parties, which might be hard for college-aged students and the football facility is a safe place to be.

“We’ve got to educate them and talk to them every day and we remind them that the safest place they can be is in our facility. I mean, that’s really the safest place there is for them,” Whittingham said. “Everyone’s been tested there and we just encourage them and plead with them to stay out of bad situations like parties, no get together where there are just random people and you don’t know who’s who. Just stay on your own as much as you can when you’re outside the facility.”

“I think our guys have done a great job of that based on the test results, we’ve had far less, in my estimation, than most teams in the country when it comes to positive tests.”

.@UtahCoachWhitt says educating his players his key to keeping them safe from contracting COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/DnCQw4v49l

— KSL Unrivaled (@KSLunrivaled) October 2, 2020

Telling this age group of people to stay home and not go to that party or even small gathering is a challenge and possibly the biggest for the season to go off smoothly. There have been many reports around the country on college campuses in which outbreaks came from parties and large gatherings.

There Are Positives To A Later Start

Utah was near the very bottom of the FBS in returning talent after losing so many players to graduation and seven to the NFL Draft. This was to be a year that the two-deep would be featuring new and inexperienced talent.

Coach Whittingham said one of the few benefits of the season being paused was that during the 12-hour allotted time of practice, it allowed for that new talent to practice, learn the playbook and prepare more than they would have if the season started on time.

“We’ve actually had more lead-in time to this fall camp than we would have in a typical year, because typically in the summertime you get eight hours a week with a student-athletes and six of those hours are devoted to strength and conditioning,” Whittingham said. “You only get two hours of film work, but we’ve been getting much more than that for several months now.”

“So if there’s a silver lining, it’s that because we had a lot of new faces in the program that needed every bit of these meetings and time to catch up on the scheme and get their feet on the ground.”

With this extra prep time, it should help the Utes to be more prepared for this unique 2020 Pac-12 season.

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