Teams cope with virus stress for championship chance
The Saturday night after winning an afternoon home game is one of the best times to be a college football player. Family and loved ones usually await with congratulatory hugs. Then there is a nice dinner and maybe more celebrating with teammates and friends.
But not this season.
“I’d pretty much go home, lay on my couch, watch (video) cut-ups of the game like two or three times. Probably go pick up some food,” Notre Dame offensive tackle Liam Eichenberg said.
To play through a pandemic, players had to sacrifice much of their lives away from the game, along with some of the best aspects of being part of a team.
To reach the playoff, No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Clemson, No. 3 Ohio State and No. 4 Notre Dame had to go a combined 37-2 and keep the coronavirus at bay.
“It’s been incredibly challenging,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. “I just tell them, don’t give up what they want most for what they may want at the moment. It’s just really that simple. And the teams that do this the best and manage this the best, that’s who’s going to finish the best.”
Doing so required lots of COVID-19 testing, and the anxiety that comes with it. Even when the players were together, there were obstacles — both literal and figurative — to bonding with teammates.
“Eating together as a team, we do it with a glass divider between us,” Notre Dame receiver Ben Skowronek said Monday during media Zoom sessions for the CFP.
Another oddity brought on by the pandemic: Four days before the New Year’s Day semifinals, the playoff participants were still on their respective campuses.
Alabama faces Notre Dame in the relocated Rose Bowl in Arlington, Texas. Clemson and Ohio State meet at the Sugar Bowl in
New Orleans in a rematch of last year’s thrilling semifinal.
Typically, teams arrive at the site of their semifinal about five or six days in advance. The teams will arrive at the host cities today.
Alabama and Clemson gave players some freedom to be with family on Christmas and other breaks this season, but with strict orders to mask up and keep their distance, even with loved ones. Notre Dame and Ohio State were more cautious, keeping their players on campus.
There is still more COVID-19 testing to be done, and each team has learned through experience that nothing is guaranteed this season.
“It was really stressful,” Alabama linebacker Dylan Moses said.
Alabama had one game postponed because of an opponent’s COVID-19 outbreak, and it played the Iron Bowl against Auburn without coach Nick Saban after he tested positive.
Notre Dame had a virus outbreak pause its season for about two weeks in late September.
Clemson star Trevor Lawrence missed two games, including the Tigers’ regular-season loss to Notre Dame, after contracting COVID-19.
Ohio State played only six games after the Big Ten started in late October, losing two games because of opponents’ COVID-19 issues and one because of its own.
“What I find to be the hard thing is how one day you can practice and the next day you’re out a couple weeks because of COVID,” said Ohio State All-American offensive lineman Wyatt Davis, who has not contracted the virus. “You can’t go out and hang out with people. You can’t go see your family.”