Louisville football: Three things to watch as fall camp kicks off
By Jacob Lane
Health
Trying to keep players healthy has always been the top priority (at least you’d like to think so) for college football coaches practices get underway in fall camp, but this year it will be the single most important part of a season happening.
Obviously this season health will be a huge part for every program across the country as training staff’s not only try to keep their players on the field and injury free but also from COVID-19 and the ongoing pandemic.
Louisville has had its football team on campus for quite some time now, and we’ve seen plenty of pictures and videos posted from social media of their work outs. That should be a huge help in keeping players and having them follow protocols and guidelines to a T, which will in turn hopefully keep players from becoming infected and spreading the virus to teammates, coaches, staff, and other students on campus.
Testing will be an integral part of training camp this season and whether that be daily or every other day, it will ultimately determine who is able to see the field and who’s not. I’d expect to see some positive tests over the coming weeks, especially as more students return to campus for the beginning of the new semester.
What happens if and when there are positive steps is yet to be seen, but if major league baseball has shown us anything it’s that players have to be removed quickly and quarantined to avoid any massive spreads. As far as Louisville’s plans, I would be willing to bet that the program will continue practicing in pods, to control the number of players and who is around who, which means that working as a full team will be limited.
On the football side of things, Louisville will also be looking to get a few key players back from injuries – none bigger than Russ Yeast. The dynamic safety was one of the best defenders for the Cards in 2019, but suffered a knee injury late in the season that forced him to miss the Kentucky and Mississippi State games as well as spring practice.
Jawon Pass is another player who will look to return from a foot injury after missing almost all of 2020. After starting in the first two games of the season, Pass would miss the remaining 11 games on the schedule paving the way for Micale Cunningham.
Pass is likely to compete with Tee Webb and Evan Conley for the backup quarterback spot, and could have a chance to grab the position due to his experience. Whatever happens, Louisville will want to have him healthy as we saw last year how dangerous it can be when quarterback’s start going down.
There’s also the concern of what happens when players who haven’t really had a ton of real “football reps” this spring and summer putting start taking a high number of reps. You’d hope that with their bodies being well-oiled machines that they would be able to get back without missing a beat, however, we know that’s not always the case.
Look for Louisville to bring the team along slowly, doing so in safe matter with avoiding players being infected by the virus being the top priority.