Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Through cold and COVID, FCS ready to roll
ATLANTA » Are you ready for some (more) football?
There’s no reason to take a break from the gridiron just because the NFL season is over.
A host of second-division college teams are practicing for their winter/spring season — snow-covered fields and all — after sitting out the fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Football Championship Subdivision will begin its abbreviated season Saturday, with teams playing four to eight regularseason games. The 16-team playoff follows in April, culminating with a mid-May national championship game in Frisco, Texas.
“It’s a unique time, to say the least,” says Brian Bohannon, coach of Kennesaw State. “We’ve not played a game since December of 2019. To run out of the tunnel again to play football is going to be exciting for me and the kids.”
If nothing else, this is a unique showcase for schools usually relegated to playing in the enormous shadow of the Bowl Subdivision.
“We have a great opportunity this spring to really highlight and shine the spotlight on our programs,” says Kyle Kallander, commissioner of the Big South Conference. “This country loves football. There’s going to be a lot of attention on FCS football this spring. This is a chance for us to really make our mark.”
Of course, it comes with some enormous challenges.
For one thing, the pandemic still looms large. Though the number of new cases has taken a steep drop in recent days, COVID-19 is still killing thousands of Americans each day, with the death toll likely to reach a halfmillion by the time some teams play their openers.
It makes you wonder if the FCS would’ve been better off just going through with its season last fall.
“We’re still facing a lot of the same challenges,” Kallander concedes.
But he believes it was a good call to delay. There is far more knowledge about how to limit and treat the virus than there was six months ago. Also, millions of people have been vaccinated, raising hopes that the U.S. is finally getting the rampaging plague under some semblance of control.
“Do I wish we could’ve played in the fall? Sure,” Kallander says. “Would it have been more challenging than it is now? Perhaps. We’ve learned a lot about protocols, the cadence for testing and how to manage all that, social distancing, how to practice, how to travel. What we’ve learned over time ... what we learned from those that did compete in the fall is that we can conduct a season in a safe way.”
But there’s nothing they can do about the weather.
For schools such as New Jersey’s Monmouth University, these early practices and perhaps even some games will likely be conducted in brutal winter weather.
“We’re going to build campfires all the way around the practice field so the players can go warm up,” Monmouth coach Kevin Callahan says.
He’s only kidding, but it sums up the weather challenges faced by Northern FCS schools.
Then again, maybe it can give them an edge — especially when hosting a Southern opponent.
“If it’s snowing, all we’re going to do is clear the hashmarks,” jokes Bernard Clark, coach of Pittsburgh’s Robert Morris Colonials. “We’re not going to put any heaters on their sideline. We’re going to do everything we can to take full advantage of this weather.”
NEW YORK » Last year, Taylor Swift gave us a lot of new music. This year it will be old — the pop star has announced she’s dropping the first of her re-recorded albums.
Swift said online Thursday that “Fearless: Taylor’s Version” is finished and “will be with you soon,” featuring re-recorded songs from Swift’s sophomore album, “Fearless.” The new set will have 26 songs — the original album had 13 — and also contain six neverbefore released songs, tunes which “almost made” the album.
Swift will also release a new version of her song “Love Story” from “Fearless” on Thursday at midnight, just in time for Valentine’s Day weekend.
Swift has vowed to re-record her first six albums after music manager Scooter Braun announced that his Ithaca Holdings
company had acquired Big Machine Label Group, the home to Swift’s first six albums. He then sold Swift’s catalogue and
the singer-songwriter complained she hadn’t been given a chance to acquire her masters.
“Fearless” was written when
Swift was between 16-18 and earned Swift her first Grammy Award. The re-recorded version is likely to be embraced by her fans and push the original recordings lower in searches.
Swift hasn’t announced when “Fearless: Taylor’s Version” will be available but a statement she posted on Twitter included a hidden message using only the capital letters which reads: April Ninth.
About the stuffed new recording, Swift wrote: “I’ve decided I want you to have the whole story, see the entire vivid picture, and let you into the entire dreamscape” that is the “Fearless” album.
“This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could’ve imagined and has made me even more determined to rerecord all my music,” she added.
In 2020, Taylor dropped two albums — “Folklore” and “Evermore.”