Fall training camp began Thursday for the UNC football team, which is still trying to do everything it can to be ready for a season clouded by uncertainty.
With the start of the school year moved up eight days from Aug. 18 to Aug. 10, this means the Tar Heels will have a much shorter fall camp than they are accustomed to. The team will have just a handful of days to focus solely on football before classes begin, then the schedule will go back to the 20 hours of practice time the NCAA allows during the school year.
The ACC officially revealed the 2020 schedule on Thursday, with the Tar Heels opening the season against Syracuse in Kenan Stadium. UNC’s non-conference opponent, scheduled to be played the second week of the season, has yet to be determined.
The wait is over.
More info » https://t.co/yJUXpEhokA pic.twitter.com/W3LJACMP8r
— ACC Football (@ACCFootball) August 6, 2020
Head coach Mack Brown told the media via Zoom last Friday that the Tar Heels are still scrambling to try and fill that spot on the schedule.
“Scheduling has gotten very fluid here in the last couple days just because of decisions made by the ACC, decisions made by the SEC and some decisions that were already made by the Big Ten and the PAC-12,” Brown said. “Now we’ve got to figure out who that plus-one is, and then you’ve got to figure out when do you schedule them.”
To make matters even more challenging, the dates for the new ACC schedule were not released until Thursday—meaning the Tar Heels had no idea how long they had to prepare for their new opponents before taking them on in a game in just a few short weeks. UNC will have to prepare for the Fighting Irish—as well as Florida State, Syracuse and its non-conference opponent—on short notice, as coaches typically start working on game plans during the offseason.
There’s also still a giant elephant in the room created by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and whether it will be safe to play college football at all. UNC is scheduled to play road games at Miami, Florida State and Boston College, which will require the team to fly to its destination. The logistics on how those trips will happen safely are still to be determined, according to Brown.
“We take three flights,” Brown said. “We go to Boston, we go to Tallahassee and we go to Miami. I’m sure now the airlines have worked really, really hard at being safe. I don’t know how many planes that means we’ll take. I don’t know if we have to cut our numbers of players that go, or people on the sideline. So, all of those things are things that medical people will be answering and we’ll start asking those questions when we get there.”
UNC has also introduced new protective face shields on its helmets that extend beyond the bottom of the facemasks. These will be used in upcoming practices for the Tar Heels, but it will be up to what the NCAA decides when it comes to what players feel most comfortable wearing during games.
New hardware 🧊😷#CarolinaFootball 🏈 #BeTheOne pic.twitter.com/V2vZfl9nVe
— Carolina Football (@TarHeelFootball) July 31, 2020
This is just the latest move made with safety in mind, as now every player who previously tested positive for the virus is back working out with the team.
Although plenty of uncertainty remains with the season approaching quickly, Brown has tried to keep his guys focused by giving them some lofty goals should everything go as planned. They start with winning the opener, followed by winning all in-state games, making the conference title game and then finally claiming the ACC championship and anything that comes after.
“We’ve tried to talk to them about football constantly to keep it on their minds so they just don’t see TV and hear all the tough things that are going on out there,” Brown said. “And we talk to the about those tough things, but we also talk to them about football.”
Photo via Dakota Moyer
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