Texas football avoiding extension of spring practice amid COVID-19 surge
After roughly one week of paused spring practice for newly hired head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Texas football program as of the morning of March 31, we might be looking at a more extended hiatus for the rest of the week. According to a report from Horns247 on March 30 (paid content), Texas “has more positive COVID-19 tests” than they did one week ago and spring drills could be delayed even further.
Granted there’s no guarantee that Texas won’t try and resume practice on the originally scheduled date of April 1 (which would be Thursday).
The initial batch of positive COVID-19 tests reportedly mostly had to do with the Longhorns running back and defensive line rooms. But now that appears to have gotten to the wide receivers and secondary too.
Sark and the Longhorns are reportedly still running some non-contact walkthroughs with contact drills put on pause for the time being. They are running non-contact walkthroughs in simulated 7-on-7 situations but without an actual football.
Future plans for Texas football spring drills
It doesn’t appear as of yet that the Longhorns are going to request an extension for spring drills since they could still get their 15 practices in before the spring football game arrives on April 24. But any more hiccups for Sark and they might need to file a waiver for extension of spring practice.
Texas began spring ball back on March 23, but the positive COVID-19 tests surfaced just one day later, placing contact drills on pause. This is an important set of practices for the Longhorns to get in since Sark is working in a completely new coaching staff (and he’s new himself) along with new schemes on each side of the ball.
The Orange-White Game is set to take place on April 24, giving the Longhorns a little more than three weeks to get their practice time in this spring. This is an ongoing storyline that we will continue to monitor to see when full spring drills get set to resume.
Next. 3 important summer visitors to watch. dark
Under the direction of now former fourth-year head coach Tom Herman, the Longhorns finished up the 2020 season with a record of 7-3 (5-3 Big 12). Sark wound up replacing Herman as Texas head coach back on Jan. 2.