Stanford and SJSU ready to return to practice on campus
Stanford football anticipates being greenlighted by Santa Clara County to practice on its campus Wednesday, a day after the Cardinal completed their fourth trainingcamp session at Woodside High in San Mateo County.
Santa Clara County on Tuesday moved into the orange tier, considered “moderate” coronavirus spread, among the state’s blueprint for reopening the economy and allowed additional services to reopen or increase capacity.
Among the expanded activities are college sports without fans and following state protocol. Practicing in groups of no larger than 75, Stanford made bus rides of 4.8 miles to Woodside to play Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday.
“It’s been a process, but our studentathletes understand it,” Stanford head coach David Shaw said before Tuesday’s practice. “They understand that it’s not just for county health, but also for their individual health for us to follow these
guidelines, and that it’s the best way for us to get an opportunity to play the sport that we love. It took a little while, but at the same time, everybody has worked together to allow us to get to this point.”
San Jose State — which moved its football team to Humboldt State on Oct. 2 — will make the 320mile return trip to its Santa Clara County campus Wednesday and resume practices there.
Santa Clara County consistently has been among the more conservative of the Bay Area’s nine counties in the reopening process during the coronavirus pandemic and joins San Francisco and Alameda counties as the only ones among the group to reach the state’s secondbest tier.
Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo and Solano counties are in the secondworst tier — red, which is considered “substantial” spread. Sonoma remains in the mostrestrictive tier: purple, or “widespread.”
“We ask that everyone continue their efforts to prevent COVID19 from spreading in our county,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara’s health officer and director of public health. “Everyone must take responsibility for preventing spread so that we don’t move back to more restrictive tiers under the state’s structure.”
Shaw said his players, who are tested daily, have taken the pandemic seriously as they’ve adjusted to traveling for practice, outdoor or Zoom meetings and new protocols for tutoring and other offfield activities.
The Cardinal will wear full pads for the first time Wednesday and begin tackling Thursday.
The Pac12 leadership voted late last month to return to play a conferenceonly schedule leading to a championship game Dec. 18. On Oct. 1, the California Department of Public Health increased its cohort sizes for college football to 75 players outside and 25 indoors.
Cal has been practicing on its campus since Friday and shuttling players between its football and rugby fields to adhere to the 75person limit. Despite the camp being restricted to 20 hours per week and the cohort limits, head coach Justin Wilcox has been pleased with the first four days of practice.
Because there was so much meeting time during the gap in allowed onfield activity, Wilcox said the installation of the defense and Bill Musgrave’s new prostyle offense are actually further along than a typical training camp. But finding time for conditioning and repetitions isn’t easy for anyone.
“That’s really the magic there, trying to be as efficient as possible,” Wilcox said.
Anderson returns to Cal: C. J. Anderson, who ran for nearly 3,500 yards and 22 touchdowns during a sevenyear NFL career, is joining Cal in a volunteer position to support the offense and staff off the field. The BethelVallejo alum, who played for the Bears in 201112 after transferring from Laney College, will work mostly with player engagement, scouting, recruiting and academics, according to Wilcox. “He’ll be a resource for our players, and the experience that he’s garnered along the way will be good,” Wilcox said. “He wants to get into coaching, and this a great opportunity to see the big picture.”