Work to continue even with no season
Veteran Yale football coach Tony Reno told his players to brace for the inevitable days before the Ivy League made national news by becoming the first Division I conference to announce that there would be no sports played during the fall semester.
Seeing the rules in place at Yale as well as the growing number of COVID-19 cases and sports teams that had to pause workouts in recent days and weeks, Reno declared to his team over one of the regular Zoom calls that they should be ready if and when the Ivy League made the decision that nobody wanted to make.
“We talked a week ago and I was pretty honest with them. I told them that in my opinion, I didn’t think there was going to be a fall season because I started thinking about what would happen if the plans came from the presidents and they felt like it was in their best judgment not to play this fall, so I think the guys really had a head start,” Reno said.
There will be no games played in September, October or December and no Ivy League title for a talentladen Yale squad to pursue, but there will be football. The coaches will be able to work with players beginning in late August. The sophomores won’t be allowed on campus in the fall as part of Yale’s restrictions to limit mass gatherings. In the spring, it will be the sophomores, juniors and seniors allowed on campus. The players who can’t take
part in drills in person will be given the same conditioning assignments and can be monitored through video conference calls.
Reno said that details of how practices will need to be conducted and if there can be 11 on 11 scrimmage situations should come from the Ivy League next week.
“When those guidelines come out, we will look at them and implement what we can,” Reno said. “We’ll look at what we are allowed to do and the time we are allowed to do it and fit our instruction into that.”
While Reno would love a chance to make a run at a third Ivy League title in the last four seasons, he is choosing to look at the positives as the Bulldogs prepare for a fall with no football games to play for the first time since 1918.
“I think they are handling it very well and we are looking at it as an incredible opportunity,” Reno said. “In our time at Yale, we never had a truly redshirt semester and that is what we are going to have in the fall. We lost a lot of development time in the spring, a lot of individual work with practice, scheme work so for our players to get that time back in the fall and I am just excited about the opportunity it gives our kids and us as a staff.”
Reno admits that he is uncertain about the potential to playing games in the spring, a scenario that hasn’t been ruled out.
“I don’t know much about that but I do know that the Ivy presidents will do what’s right for us, for the kids, for the communities when that time comes,” Reno said. “We are just going to handle what is right in front of us, try to get better every day, obviously when decisions are made we are ready to go no matter what the decisions are.”
The players will have to make some decisions as well. Ten seniors started games for Bulldogs during the magical 2019 season and Reno said that the eightsemester rule will remain in place at Yale meaning that if they want to in the fall of 2021, they would need to not be enrolled at Yale in either the fall or spring semester.
Running back Alan Lamar has already made his decision. He missed the 2017 season due to a knee injury and took off the spring semester so he could play for Yale in the fall. He recently posted on Twitter that he intends to graduate in December and will play his final season elsewhere as a graduate transfer.
“He is an extraordinary player and a great person, you feel so badly for guys like Alan and others across the country,” Reno said. “We support him and hopefully we will be able to get him the opportunity that he deserves wherever that might be.”
The players will probably need to see if the season is played in the spring. If there ends up being no season, they should be able to take the spring semester off and come back to play in 2021.
“I talked to the guys a bunch, we take it on an individual basis for each family and what works for them and to be able to support them in any way we can,” Reno said. “Obviously it is an unprecedented situation. The one thing that has been really refreshing to me is our guys just love playing at Yale so I feel really good about the experience they are having and hope that they continue to keep playing.”
There will be plenty of emotions on Saturday afternoons in the fall for the Yale players and coaches who won’t have games to get ready for.
“I do think that Saturday afternoons will be difficult for everyone but we will be spending time doing other things that will really engulf us and allow these guys to get to where they need to be,” Reno said. “It is going to be a challenge for everybody in the country and it is just the situation we are in we’ll see how it all plays out. We wish the best for everybody else that will be playing but I know that the presidents made the very best decision for the students and for all of us to make sure that the health and safety of our kids is paramount.”