Minnesota Duluth offensive lineman Nolan Folkert said the preseason will feel weird this August now that the NCAA has ended two-a-day football practices.
Fellow Bulldogs captain Jason Balts happened to be walking by and offered up a different opinion.
"It's wonderful," Balts said.
Love 'em or (mostly) hate 'em, two-a-days are gone, part of the NCAA's offseason effort to increase safety. UMD, the nine-time defending NSIC North Division champions, begins practice today, with the Bulldogs beginning their 85th season of intercollegiate football Aug. 31 at home in a conference showdown against Sioux Falls.
"It's a positive move for the game of football," UMD coach Curt Wiese said. "Concussions are a concern, at the top of everybody's list in the game of football, and in any sport, and we as football coaches need to adjust with the new medical documentation and literature that has come out on concussions."
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The NCAA Division II Presidents Council voted to eliminate two-a-days in late April (Divisions I and III made the same move earlier in the month). The move was based off recommendations from the NCAA's Sports Science Institute, citing statistics showing that 58 percent of football practice concussions happen during the preseason.
"There is a lot to be said for limiting the amount of helmet-to-helmet - physical contact - you have throughout the season," Wiese said. "The NFL still puts out a good product and they've been doing it that way for years, and college football has adopted some of those same rules and philosophies. I think it's a great thing."
UMD had five two-a-days last August, with the team practicing for three hours in the morning, taking a break, having lunch and generally coming back for about two hours in the afternoon. Teams can still hold two practices in a day, but one has to be a non-contact "walkthrough." Wiese said those will last about an hour.
"With the mental side of things, I think we can still be where we need to be come Sioux Falls," Wiese said. "Everybody is in the same boat here, and at the end of the day, hopefully we can have a healthier football team."
Folkert, a senior from Elgin, Minn., near Rochester, would like the extra practice time that two-a-days allowed because he is making the move from left guard to right tackle this season.
"I'd like more practice, but other guys need more of a break," Folkert said. "A lot of the older guys are beat up, and they already know what they're doing, so it's nice for them. But for me, I want more practice. It's a tough switch I'm going through, but I love a challenge. It's going to be interesting moving to right tackle and trying to be able to compete at the level I did at left guard."
Track installation to disrupt practice
While UMD isn't having traditional two-a-days, they will be having split practices while the Bulldogs' new $1.2 million track is being installed at Malosky Stadium.
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UMD plans on practicing at Malosky Stadium for the first half of practice before moving for the second half to the field off College Street, where the UMD rugby team plays.
There is a fence around the artificial turf at Malosky Stadium, preventing people from walking where the synthetic surface will be placed, so when the Bulldogs need more space, they move it over to the grass.
"The majority of our team activities will be done on the grass field, just so we have a little more space," Wiese said. "At the end of the day, it's going to be a great thing. It's progress. It's going to be a brand new track for everybody on campus, so it's an exciting thing."
Who will replace Drew?
The biggest question facing UMD in the preseason is replacing quarterback Drew Bauer, a four-year starter who earned free-agent tryouts with the Green Bay Packers and New Orleans Saints.
Sophomore Mike Rybarczyk emerged as the favorite coming out of spring practice but Wiese said nothing is a given and even mentioned the possibility of two quarterbacks playing on Saturdays. Redshirt freshmen John Larson of Braham, Minn., and Ben Everhart of Eau Claire, Wis., also are in the mix.
"All three of those guys had really good springs for us, but you really don't know until the bullets start flying," Wiese said. "That was the one thing with Drew Bauer, we knew in a game situation when things got heated, if there was something we weren't prepared for, Drew could take a deep breath at the line of scrimmage and make all of us look good. It's our job as a staff to get that next guy to that level."
