In following national health guidelines, Auburn University last month decided to hold its upcoming summer semester through online classes. That's the standard nationally for current spring-semester students at thousands of universities and high schools.
Student-athletes are in a whole new arena — and it'll be the most difficult for first-year students who haven't even stepped on campus yet — but the coaches are equally as worried about their players.
That's the area where Auburn coach Gus Malzahn has put most of his time and energy over the past few weeks.
"Our academic meetings have went well," Malzahn said in a teleconference with local reporters Friday. "That’s also a big stress with everybody working from their own place. All of our players have different situations as far as where they can do their meetings and all that, but so far, so good with our academics."
The SEC is now allowing coaches to instruct players for four hours per week — double their previous allotted time from last week. Malzahn sees that as a necessity and a massive plus for his staff and players.
Malzahn has been an overseer during these unprecedented circumstances, allowing position coaches to meet over video conference with their groups, and coordinators to get a head start on game-planning for 2020 opponents.
The head coach wants to make sure the overall operation runs smoothly, and in terms of his players — particularly his 2020 signees who didn't enroll early — everything checks out in that regard.
"Everything's good," Malzahn said Tuesday when asked if the entirety of his current roster is primed to return to the team when football operations resume. "Then of course, all of our signees, too. We're following up, communicating with those guys, making sure they finish up everything. As of right now we're on track for all that looking good, too."
The SEC banned all in-person events, including games, workouts, practices, meetings and more just a few days before Auburn was set to begin spring practice approximately three weeks ago.
"We had some guys that we felt like were going to have good springs," Malzahn said of his assessment of pre-spring workouts and training. "We weren’t able to do that. As good as you can feel going into the spring, I would say we probably did that as far as our team.”
The university encouraged all students that could leave Auburn to exit campus and return to their hometowns. Some exceptions were made for overseas and exchange students and student-athletes, such as offensive tackle Kilian Zierer. Malzahn said "most" of Auburn's players otherwise are back home.
The 6-foot-7 junior college product from Germany is staying in town as he nurses a torn ACL suffered last season that was expected to hold him out of spring practices at Auburn.
"He’s getting better," Malzahn said of Zierer. "He’s still, I don’t know if he can run full-speed yet, but we’re hopeful in the near future that he’ll be able to do that, so he’s still got some work to do.”
The SEC's most recent ruling has practices and athletic activities suspended through May 31. Malzahn said Tuesday he's not conjecturing the possibility of a delayed start to the season or no season at all; he's simply taking things a few weeks at a time with his coaches and players.
"We're not speculating," he said. "Really, as far as I've gotten to be honest with you is looking like if they report June 1, if they report June 15, if they report July 1, if they report July 15. To be honest with you, I've not gotten past July 15. So, really, my mindset is really just trying to stay positive and then to have the plan ready to go, specifically when they get back. I've not went anywhere in my mind past July the 15th."
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