DENVER — Two weeks until kickoff is quite the fast turnaround. Teams begin practice Thursday, Sept. 24, after both CHSAA and Governor Polis agreed to permit football to have an optional season in the fall.
"This is not a typical summer or season for sure."
Dr. Eric McCarty is the Chief of Sports Medicine at CU. He's keeping a close eye on potential risks for athletes jumping in too quickly.
"They're not the usual summer workouts because everyone is limited because of the contact."
Teams were permitted to have summer camps beginning some time after June 1, depending on local city and county rules. Those organized team practices were halted after the decision to delay football was handed down on August 4. Some teams have had conditioning workouts, but contact has been forbidden in this period.
Dr. McCarty said conditioning for the next two weeks will be crucial, but it's how coaches introduce contact that will be key to keeping kids out of his office.
"The hitting part is really going to be an interesting part because it's kind of like warming up a car that hasn't been started for a while," he said. "You want to get it going but you don't want to take it out on the highway for a super long drive. You have to adapt and you want to get people used to wearing pads. The biggest thing we're interested in is preventing injuries. If you can do it slowly and adapt and get guys in condition, you're going to be in good shape, I just don't know how long that takes."
The warmup period takes longer when teams are prohibited from contact, he noted. During only week two of the NFL, six players tore their anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL), in addition to a string of other injuries to star players.
"You really wonder if not having preseason games, not having the game-speed conditions contributed to that," he said. "They didn't have the same scrimmages, they didn't have the preseason games, even the high schools won't have that!"
No dress rehearsals to work out the bugs before the big show on October 8, but Dr. McCarty does bear good news: some of those issues can be avoided with basic communication and overall wellness.
"The message is that everyone needs to stay in shape, get good rest, get good nutrition, and if you get tired in the game, you have to let a coach know. That's when fatigue hits and you need to be careful. We see a lot of ACL injuries when people aren't controlling their bodies," he said. "We want them to be safe. I don't want to see them in the operating room or the clinic, of course we're happy to, but we want them to be safe, healthy, and have a great experience."