“They just can’t come back and play. Those days are gone.”

On the one hand, it’s good to see that the NCAA and schools are being realistic about how much time will be needed for a return to play once the coronavirus threat is deemed manageable ($$).

The NCAA’s chief medical officer said Friday that he’s operating under the “working assumption” that college football players would need somewhere from four to six weeks before playing games to mitigate the risk of catastrophic and overuse injuries.

“It would mean that you’ve reached a certain level of fitness, just from a strength and conditioning point of view, and that’s going to require that there be certain sorts of fitness testing that that’s done,” Dr. Brian Hainline told The Athletic. “That ranges from functional testing so that you know you’re really using the kinetic chain part of your body properly to the ability to do repetitive sprints and to be able to recover. It’s not just about what you can do, but the degree to which your body can recover — that’s a very important part of it.

“It really has been worked out from an accelerated four-week to a six-week scenario. And it’s still being worked out. But that’s the working assumption, that it’s going to be somewhere in that four- to six-week scenario.”

On the other, though, I can’t help but wonder how they start compressing that time frame if the first kickoff is scheduled for, say, late October.  I mean, this same guy lets on about this:

Hainline said that the working group is looking at potentially giving football teams permission to hold multiple contact practices in the same day, otherwise known as two-a-days. The NCAA banned two-a-days in 2017.

A good business plan starts with flexibility.  It’s even better when you’re flexible with others.