While the 2020 college football season hasn’t been disturbed much yet by the coronavirus pandemic in terms of games having been canceled or moved, Notre Dame suffered a disappointment earlier in June when its season opener against Navy had to be moved from Dublin, Ireland. Instead the Fighting Irish will travel to Annapolis, Md., for a road game against the Midshipmen for the first time ever.
Certainly there’s some advantage for Navy with the game being moved, although it’s unclear whether fans will be in attendance. But the Midshipmen have a number of disadvantages with respect to their summer training regimen that they’ll need to overcome.
Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo broke down the details, including a whopping two-week quarantine, per Bill Wagner of The Capital Gazette.
“We’re going to have a shorter amount of time to get ready than most people. It’s not ideal. We just have to adjust to the situation and do the best we can,” Niumatalolo said. “You can’t complain. You just have to find a way to maximize the time we have.”
“You cannot make up for lost time. We will have missed almost six months of preparation,” Niumatalolo added. “Fortunately, I feel really good about the culture of our program. I think the discipline of our players will come to the surface during this time. Hopefully, that will be our edge — that we’re more disciplined than other teams.”
One additional detail is that Navy students must pass a Physical Readiness Test at the start of the school year that involves an element of endurance that isn’t directly applicable to football. Wagner wrote that Niumatalolo has told his team to train for the test and that they’ll move to football-oriented conditioning work afterward. That means Navy players don’t have much room, if any, to work on football conditioning right now.
So not only will Navy be behind from that perspective, but it can’t rush things and risk key players suffering preseason injuries that rule them out for the Notre Dame game, which will take place on either Sept. 5 or 6. It's a big game for the Midshipmen, as Notre Dame has won three straight in the series to build its longest win streak against Navy in nearly 15 years. Navy last beat the Irish during the 2016 season in a game played at EverBank Field in Jacksonville, Fla.
“We have to be super careful. We can’t go crazy and get people hurt. That said, we can’t go too slow because we’re already way behind. It’s a real dilemma,” Niumatalolo said.
“... You build a football team through winter and summer strength and conditioning. Spring camp is another critical part of that. We’ve skipped some of the most important steps in the process.”
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June 21, 2020 at 11:40PM
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Navy faces difficult summer that includes 2-week quarantine - 247Sports
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