Texas Football: Schools are looking at ‘mid-July return’ for athletes

The next realistic target date to get the players of the Texas football program back to campus for the lead up to the season is apparently mid-July.

The 2020 college football season is still being called into question of late given all the grim news cycle surrounding the novel coronavirus pandemic. All that you will catch in the news cycle day-by-day now is the COVID-19 outbreak. But the Texas football program and its fans will still be hoping there is a way to safely play out the coming 2020 season.

Definitely the biggest hurdle for the Texas Longhorns football program to have games played this coming season will be the safety of the essential personnel (coaches, players, and other team staff). But there is apparent optimism surrounding the possibility of playing some type of modified 2020 season schedule, if nothing else.

One source that provided for optimism in the lead up to the 2020 season was ESPN’s Laura Rutledge. On April 8, Rutledge joined the ESPN “Get Up” crew on morning television to speak out on the status of college football during the 2020 offseason.

What she said on Get Up on Wednesday morning was detailed in this transcript (thanks to 247Sports).

Here’s more on what she had to say on the show yesterday.

"“The most important piece is there is optimism around it, it’s definitely complicated, but there’s optimism because they have time and really the timeline that we’re looking at here is toward the end of May, early June,” Rutledge said. “All of these conferences that have shut down operations right now are going to reconvene and they’re going to assess the situation around the country – just like all of us are doing. They’re going to see how things look at that point.“We’re really talking about early June, that buys them a lot of time up until that point. Now then, once they have a timeline, a plan, they’re targeting mid-July for a hopeful return for their players and some semblance of athletic activity, getting ready for the season.”"

Apparently the target date for players to return to campuses ahead of the 2020-21 academic sports calendar is in mid-July. That would get players back in time for summer workouts, and to get prepared for some type of training camp, or the usual fall camp festivities.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter also reported on his Twitter timeline on April 9 that there is somewhat of a strong certainty surrounding the playing of the 2020 college football season. That is good news, but it is still pretty early to tell if there will be a 2020 college football season that is played on time.

Spring camps around the country were effectively cancelled thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, and summer workouts might be a difficult task to get started on time too. This report from Rutledge is a good sign for plans in place, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Texas finished up their 2019 season with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12) after beating the Utah Utes in the Alamo Bowl. They are set to open their 2020 regular season against the South Florida Bulls on Sep. 5.