Today: Mar 28, 2024

football faces no season in fall

Edward Rudman Sports Writer

The changing of the leaves and the colder weather of autumn are almost upon us, but one thing that will not be accompanying them is a college football season.

Southern’s football team posted a record of 2-8 overall and 2-6 in Northeast-10 Conference play in 2019 but showed promising progression throughout the season.

Now, due to COVID-19 and the precautions the school is taking to keep its athletes safe and healthy, the football team will not be able to show their improvement this year.

“I think that a lot of us are trying to stay positive and do whatever we can to play well in the spring or whenever we will be allowed to play, that’s really what we’re working for,” said Quarterback Jackson Ostrowsky, a sophomore. “What I’m thinking is we have another year to get better, another year to get faster, to get stronger and to be able to work on making different throws. It’s not that we don’t have the chance to show how good we are, we just don’t have the chance yet.”

Ostrowsky was promoted to the starting job as a true freshman after the season had started and threw for 2,185 yards, 17 touchdowns and 4 interceptions, while completing 54.8 percent of his passes.

At the end of the season, Ostrowsky received All-Rookie Team honors for the NE10 And Southern placed nine student-athletes on the 2019 NE10 All-Conference Team.

While not being able to compete during their regular fall season and combatting COVID-19 remains to be the biggest obstacle for the Southern football team this semester, there are still other challenges to be faced head on at the same time.

“We have a new defensive coordinator,” said head coach Tom Godek. “So, do you want to bring out 30 guys at once on defense and just keep that group out there and have them go through some things? Or, would you like to create this other bubble of 15 guys in defense and 15 offensive guys out there so you could actually have a true wide receiver play against the defense instead of a safety being plugged into a receiver slot?”

This is just one of the many dilemmas Godek and the rest of the staff and athletes will have to solve and train around.

Unlike the other fall sports, the football team is much larger and has approximately 100 players and coaches in the program.

With the parameters set by the school of having 25-30 people be in a ‘bubble’ at one time once phase two is supposed to begin on Sept. 28, the team will have to figure out how to split up their team.

In phase one and two, eight hours of training with the team will be permitted during the week and out of those eight, six of them will be dedicated to strength and conditioning.

The remaining two will be spent on predominantly walkthroughs and the mental aspect of the sport instead of normal physical practices due to COVID-19, according to Godek.

One of the things that Godek and the football team will utilize greatly is watching film, as it is easier to social distance and is still effective for the student athletes to learn their roles and responsibilities at each position.

“I’ve always felt like instead of having someone trek back over to the field house for a meeting,” said Godek. “You could call an online meeting and watch film at 3 AM if you wanted to and everyone could be there and that’ll be a huge factor there.”

Photo credit: www.southernowls.com

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