For the moment, Will Muschamp won’t let South Carolina football dwell on the what-ifs
Nothing is normal for South Carolina football this year.
The team should have just wrapped up spring practice, with players heading into a stage of workouts before May break and coaches readying to hit the road for recruiting evaluations. Instead, the gates around the team’s football facility are locked, with the campus shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The only thing a football program can do is cast aside the “what-ifs” and look forward to the fall.
“As a staff, right now, and as a team, we have to plan as if we’re playing this fall,” Muschamp said Monday in a teleconference with reporters. “Until someone tells us otherwise, that’s out plan. I’m not going to get into the what-ifs and all the questions out there because there’s a lot more questions than there are answers.
“Until somebody tells me differently, we’re playing in the fall.”
The coach said one of his players was tested for coronavirus, as he was out of the country when things got serious, but the test was negative.
In Muschamp’s estimation, it would take about eight weeks of lead-up to have college football teams ready to go — a month of conditioning and a month of practice. He said he wasn’t too concerned with hurdles such as getting a new offense installed, but the conditioning factor was key.
For the moment, the coaches and players are communicating by video chat with players four hours a week.
A few other steps the Gamecocks have taken:
▪ Director of player development Connor Shaw is meeting on Zoom once a week with the team to go over mental heath issues and developing routines.
▪ Performance consultant Kevin Elko is meeting with the leadership group once a week.
▪ The coaching staff meets twice a week, with the offense and defense each meeting daily. The staff is looking at 2020 opponents, self-scout, offseason projects and recruiting.
▪ Strength coach Paul Jackson is helping players figure out how to stay in shape with a diverse set of workout options. Muschamp noted offensive lineman Vershon Lee sent over a video of himself pushing a car for a workout.
Muschamp also has something he’s not often had: a little extra free time. He said he’s still got plenty of football things to worry about, but he’s also exercising more than he has before.
And he caught up on a little something many Americans have been using to kill time.
“I embarrassingly will admit that I didn’t know much about Netflix until now,” Muschamp said. “But I do now. My wife and I watch Bloodline. That’s a heck of a show.
“We watched that every night for about two weeks. We worked through all three seasons of it.”
