Whittingham: The Important Thing Is That There Is A Football Season
Apr 21, 2020, 3:12 PM
Utah Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham walks the sidelines after a Utah score as Utah and UCLA play a college football game in Salt Lake City at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019. (Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
(Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – With the uncertainty of when or if there will be a college football season, Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham is only concerned about is that they have a season.
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“The real important thing is that there is a football season,” Whittingham said. “The best case scenario is starting the season on time. We figured we would need 6, 7 or 8 weeks of lead time to get the players ready for that.”
Whittingham talked about the current state that we are living in with the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday in a Zoom conference call with the media.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced all sports to shut down and it’s still uncertain as to when they will resume.
"The real important thing is that there is a football season."
– @UtahCoachWhitt on what this season may look like with the ongoing pandemic, asked about the potential of a January start. #GoUtes @Utah_Football
— KSL Sports (@kslsports) April 21, 2020
Starting The Season In January, February
According to some reports, the NCAA is looking at possibly moving the 2020 college football season to February, 2021 and wrapping up in May. Whittingham isn’t opposed to that idea.
“I have heard starting the season October 1, November 1 or even February 1 which I don’t know how that would work,” Whittingham mentioned. “It would be nice to get some of those warm weather teams here in February and see how they react.”
When asked about a possible season in the winter, Whittingham raised some flags.
“It’s feasible but now you are starting to impact the next season with spring ball and that type of thing,” Whittingham said. “There would have to be concessions made on the back end which is doable. I think it also depends on the NFL because if the NFL isn’t playing, we aren’t playing.”
The Utah coaching staff has prepared for whatever comes their way so that they are ready when they get the green light to start preparing for the season.
“We have built 6-week, 7-week and 8-week models as far as preparation and how we would handle it,” Whittingham stated.
Potentially Playing Without Fans
Another option that is out there is not having fans attend games.
“I guess anything is possible,” Whittingham said. “I sure hope not because we have a great home field advantage at Rice-Eccles. That would really impact us more than most teams in the country and in the conference. If it comes down to a season without fans or no season then I think it’s the direction it could go so we have to be prepared for that. It would be a completely different environment and very odd to be in that situation but I hope it doesn’t come to that because we have great fans here at Utah.
Trevor Allen is a Utah Utes Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Crimson Corner podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @TrevorASports. You can download and listen to the podcast, here.
