Voluntary workouts coming
Pitt DLs waiting for official date
Patrick Jones isn’t thinking about the potential for a canceled college football season, and neither is fellow Pitt star Jaylen Twyman. The pass-rushers who spurned the 2020 NFL draft for a chance to improve their stock and another crack at something special with the Panthers simply refuse to entertain the thought of a year taken by COVID-19.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do it,” Twyman said, with a laugh, during a Wednesday zoom session with reporters. “That would drive me crazy.”
Fortunately for Pitt’s sack artists, it doesn’t look like they have reason to fret. At least not at the moment, with a hopeful approach and necessary steps being taken to play college football in the fall.
Now, it seems it will be just a matter of time before Twyman, Jones and the other Panthers find out when they’re allowed at Pitt’s South Side facility to get preparations underway.
As the joint virtual conference call finished, news broke nationally that the NCAA Division I Council voted to approve voluntary, on-campus athletic activities for football and men’s and women’s basketball, starting June 1 and going through June 30. This was an expected, yet necessary decision to give programs the green light to welcome players back for the first time since spring practice was canceled two months ago due to coronavirus concerns.
It should be noted that these voluntary activities are not practices supervised by field coaches, but instead the strength and conditioning staff, as is largely the case in the summer. If everything proceeds without a hitch — a pretty big if, for what it’s worth — a six-week training camp beginning in mid-July
could bring college football teams to their previously scheduled opener in late August and early September.
Ohio State already has set June 8 as a target date for their players to return to campus. The Southeastern Conference is reportedly mulling something similar. At Pitt, Twyman and Jones said they have not received a specific date to circle on their calendars — but they’re ready for whenever word comes from coach Pat Narduzzi.
“Keep your eyes open,” Twyman said, relaying the message from Pitt’s staff to the players, “and don’t make any big plans.”
The second-team All-American also mentioned that when players come back to the facility for voluntary work, they likely will do so in eight to 10 small groups at a time, wearing masks as a precautionary measure. Jones, meanwhile, said they weren’t explicitly told they’ll be tested for COVID-19 upon return. “But you could only imagine,” the second-team All-ACC choice added.
The most important aspect of these voluntary workouts is, of course, the safety of the players.
Though they don’t speak for the entire team, Jones and Twyman said they are “100% comfortable” with getting back to football training at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.
Jones, whose older sister was diagnosed with and recovered from COVID-19, said his confidence stems from the trust he has in his teammates, trust that they’re practicing social distancing and doing everything within their power to stay safe and consider those around them.
The only things Twyman and Jones might not be comfortable with? The actual COVID-19 tests — “They say getting tested for that stuff is hurtful, them sticking something all the way up your nose,” Twyman said — and the idea of a football season being played without students on campus.
Two weeks ago, multiple college commissioners told Stadium’s Brett McMurphy that student-athletes wouldn’t be prevented from returning to campus to play if classes are limited to online-only instruction — a notable shift in tone from an April conference call between commissioners and Vice President Mike Pence.
Twyman said football being played and in-person classes should “for sure” go hand-in-hand. Jones concurred.
“We’re student-athletes,” Jones said. “That’s the way it should be.”
Whether or not that will be the case is up to individual universities. Pitt has yet to make a decision on how fall classes will be structured.
In the meantime, Twyman and Jones eagerly await an approved start date for voluntary workouts. Both said if the season started tomorrow, they would be good to go physically. Whether or not that’s true will be tested upon return. And yet, there was a confidence oozing from the passrushers that the Panthers will shake off any rust come training camp, whenever that will be.
Pitt had three spring practices before everything was canceled, and the squad won’t get those 12 missed practices back. But the entire team has been meeting via Zoom on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with position-specific sessions Tuesdays and Thursdays and other opportunities that are still available.
Plus, Pitt is a team that brings back leadership within the coaching ranks and on both sides of the ball.
For the first time in his Pitt tenure, Narduzzi will have the same offensive and defensive coordinators for consecutive seasons and, perhaps more important, veterans like Twyman, Jones, Paris Ford and Damar Hamlin opted to for another year in college instead of trying to land an NFL gig.