By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
When most people think of football, especially in the South, thoughts tend to drift to fall. Warm weather starts to turn cooler, the leaves start to change. Part of the pageantry of football comes from that tradition.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything in 2020.
Games that were expected to be played at their usual times weren't. In just a matter of days, Tennessee Tech had its Football Bowl Subdivision game against Minnesota cancelled as the Big Ten went conference-only. Tech then scheduled contests against TCU and Southern Miss, but just a day or two later, the Ohio Valley Conference followed suit and postponed the football season – along with all fall sports – into the spring semester.
For the first season since Tucker Stadium opened in the mid-1960s, the stadium stood mostly silent. While the Power 5 conferences trickled back into competition, finally crowning a College Football Playoff National Champion in January, the vast majority of the Division I Football Championship Subdivision teams could just sit on the sidelines and watch from afar.
"It's a tradition, especially here in the Southeastern United States, to play football in the fall," said Tech head coach Dewayne Alexander. "It's kind of a rite of passage. Take away the players and coaches, there are a lot of avid fans that just missed football in the fall. In the South, we have the leaves changing and the third Saturday in October, so it means something to people here."
In Alexander's case, for someone who has been around football nearly his entire life, a fall without football was unique.
"I started playing football when I was seven years old, playing for the Pee Wee Packers in Hendersonville, Tenn., and I've never had a fall without football since," he said. "That was 1973, and I've always either played or coached. I'm going into my 33rd year and I've never experienced a fall.
"I've always heard people say, 'Wow, the beach is beautiful in October.' I have no idea what that is or what all these things are that people do. For me, in September and October, with a beautiful day and the leaves are changing, you've got a football game and you're playing somebody. With the way the rules are structured for our student-athletes, we gave them Saturdays and Sundays off.
Alexander continued, "I had all those weekends off in the fall and I'm still not sure my family has gotten over me being home. I really just didn't know what to do with myself. It was really just a weird feeling. I spent a lot of time with my family and did some things I normally don't get to do."
So, the 2021 FCS title will be decided in the spring. Tennessee Tech and the rest of the OVC – minus Eastern Kentucky, who opted out before playing nine games in the fall – will play a seven-game schedule starting on February 21.
Instead of going from warm weather into cooler temps, it'll be the exact opposite as the season stretches from February into potentially May with a deep playoff run.
It'll be different, for sure, but spring football certainly isn't a new concept. Look at the various professional football leagues that have popped up over the years – the USFL, the XFL and so on. Almost every collegiate team has spring practices, so putting on the pads in these early months are nothing new.
There is an advantage though. With the Super Bowl in the books and the FBS level still weeks away from cranking up their spring workouts, the FCS is playing games that matter in the spring – and it's an opportunity for the other Division I tier to spread its wings.
"We are the only Division I teams playing," Alexander said. "All the FBS schools played in the fall or opted out completely. So FCS football is going to be kind of on the forefront here once the season starts."
Every OVC contest will be streamed on ESPN+, which will allow exposure to a nationwide subscriber base.
"Hopefully more people will tune in," said Alexander. "There are people that love to watch football and they're going to watch football before they watch any other sport. I don't care what's on TV, if there's a football game on, they're going to watch it. There have been numerous leagues that have attempted the spring that stayed around maybe a year or two to try to capture that market of football fans. I think that's one of the positives – we're going to get to expose FCS football to a new market of fans this spring."
The other bright side is getting set to play does bring a sense of normalcy in what has been a turbulent time. However, it hasn't been easy to set schedules, especially trying to work in class schedules and the academic calendar in what would essentially be a camp slate.
"At least getting back into practice schedules and watching film and practice tape has given me some consistency to my day. I've been a creature of habit out of my 33 years of coaching. I typically have my entire yearly calendar all planned out over Christmas break from January to next December. Everything's set from recruiting weekends to spring practice to evaluation days for spring recruiting, evaluation camp, our summer golf tournament and preseason camp.
"I've had to run about 20 of those through the shredder."
Alexander continued, "I was up front with our guys – I have never done this before. To get a good effective schedule together – and I've got a good group of players – I've asked them and leaned on them a little bit, 'Hey, what do you think of this? Would you like to adjust this? Do you want to work out before or after practice?' We've told them we have to be flexible. We may have to switch things up a day or two, but I want to give the guys a plan and a schedule. It's important for them to have that."
There's still one stubborn opponent the Tennessee Tech football team and the rest of the NCAA have been trying to tackle – the coronavirus. While numbers appear to be tapering off at the moment, the COVID-19 pandemic is still present and the need for patience and caution is still paramount.
"Right when you think it's going away or we're getting a handle on it, another variation pops up, so you're not sure how long this thing is going to linger around and how it's going to affect everything. My hope with moving everything to the spring was so we'd be safer and have fewer of the issues we were dealing with.
"Unfortunately, we're still dealing with it. My hope is that all the teams get to put their best players out there every Saturday – that we get to put the best version of Austin Peay against the best version of Tennessee Tech. I think every coach will tell you that. We all understand it's all still the reality, and it is what it is. We've been dealing with this since June when we brought our guys back. It's been tests after tests and just been one big, giant, long season for us."
Alexander pulled out two file folders from his desk. The smaller one was his schedule and plans for practice. The larger one, nearly two-to-three inches thick, involves the COVID-19 pandemic, testing and protocols for the team to follow.
"I've been keeping up with all of that because it is important to our planning," Alexander said. "I hope that it is taking a downturn so you don't have a team that has to outright cancel a game or be without 10 or 12 players to make that decision for them."
Make no mistake – the switch to spring is just a temporary one. There are factors that would make a permanent switch to spring football an unfeasible one. From recruiting to coaching staff turnover, a persistent spring schedule becomes a bit tougher.
"People ask me, "Should FCS football just play in the spring?'" Alexander said. "'Move it there and make it more marketable and get more attention to it?' The only way to do that, to me, is you'd have to move all football there. There's too many variables. Just with coaches, for example, you'll have some leaving to take jobs on the FBS level just before the season starts. It'd make it very, very complicated to do year-round.
"Right now, we're in a mandatory dead period in recruiting that all Division I has been in. You take that out and how do things shake out? There's so many factors that people don't think about and I don't think the calendars match up to have Division I playing all year round."
As the season begins on Saturday, the page on the calendar may be different, but the goals are the same – win the Sergeant York Trophy, win the Ohio Valley Conference championship, win the FCS National Championship.
It's certainly been a struggle to get to this point, but the season is here.
To steal a line from Tech's bigger brothers to the East in Knoxville, it's football time in Tennessee.
