Utah’s Mark Harlan is hopeful that college football kicks off as scheduled

Mark Harlan, the new athletic director at the University of Utah, poses in front of portraits of former athletic director Isaac Armstrong, left, former head basketball coach Vadal Peterson and former athletic director James Jack at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City on Friday, June 29, 2018. | James Wooldridge, Deseret News

Director of athletics noted that a consensus is building for six to eight weeks of preparation time for student-athletes to get ready

SALT LAKE CITY — There’s a timetable, of sorts, when it comes to the Utah-BYU football game at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Sept. 3. Although there’s plenty of speculation about how and when the season opener between the Utes and Cougars might be played amid the coronavirus pandemic, a start-up date for practicing could tell the tale.

Mark Hartan, Utah’s athletic director, notes that a general consensus is emerging that it will take six to eight weeks for student-athletes playing football to be in the best possible condition to compete at such a level.

“That collectively needs to be decided. But I think that’s generally what the time period is,” said Harlan, who added that some teams have week zero dates and need to begin even sooner.

Six weeks of preparation for Utah and BYU means practices need to begin no later than July 23.

“That’s kind of where you have to be. And if you’re not there, you have to make decisions about alterations to the season,” Harlan said. “So once we finalize that comeback piece, so to speak, then I think we can start preparing for where things are at on those particular dates.”

Utah’s 2020 football schedule begins with three nonconference games. After opening with BYU, the Utes host Montana State on Sept. 12 and travel to Wyoming on Sept. 19. Pac-12 play begins the following week at California, ushering in a season-ending stretch of conference dates that includes home games against USC (Oct. 2), Washington (Oct. 17), Arizona (Nov. 7) and Oregon State (Nov. 14), as well as road contests at Washington State (Oct. 10), UCLA (Oct. 29), Arizona State (Nov. 21) and Colorado (Nov. 28).

“We would love to get all 12 games. We’re excited about all the opponents that are coming into Rice-Eccles and those we’re going to see. That’s our going in plan as it sits today and that’s what my hope is,” Harlan said. “But, again, we also have to be prepared to adapt and work around options that allow us to get as many games as we can in.”

Harlan acknowledged that the nonconference games out of the gate are obviously the ones that could be most impacted by any sort of delay because of the virus. He said it’ll be a “wait-and-see” situation as health experts, the university and state leadership provide information. Collective decisions will be made working within the conference.

“I certainly remain positive that we can start football, but also realistic that we have to plan for various scenarios as they develop. Not speaking as a member of the (NCAA) football oversight committee but just as a director of athletics at a Pac-12 school, we’ll continue to work with our league to deal with the things as they come,” Harlan said. “The first thing is just really working collectively to decide how many weeks it’s going to take for a student-athlete to be prepared to come back and compete, not just in football but in all of our fall sports and get collective agreement across our conference and the country in that regard. That’s the thing that’s right in front of us.”

It remains to be seen if that means every university is up and running — aside from online operations — once again. Harlan said that will be a campus-by-campus decision.

“I think it certainly makes a lot of sense that your campus has to be in some operational form to have a lot of student-athletes in formal practice,” he explained. “We certainly know that in the summer our student-athletes, on a typical year, are here in school, working out, doing our kind of things. But I don’t think there’s hard, fast rules to that.

“I think it makes a lot of sense to have your campus functioning in a lot of different ways, and we certainly hope that will be the case,” Harlan added.

The question is when. Harlan emphasized that whatever the timetable is, they must be able to slide it into the appropriate date when it is believed safe to run a football game.

“I know this, one thing in this whole situation is that you have to be cautious to make early decisions because you just don’t have a lot of data and information,” Harlan said. “But as the days and weeks go by, you seem to get more of that. So I think right now you plan for multiple scenarios and you hope for the best.”

In the meantime, there’s a growing number of furloughs and temporary pay cuts dotting the uncertain landscape in collegiate athletics. Harlan addressed the situation at Utah.

“We’ve been working really hard to have really laser focus on this fiscal year to make sure that we finish the year in a positive manner and we’re trending to be able to do that,” he said. “That’s the terrific work of so many people in the department who have been really thoughtful about any expenses as we finish this last period of the fiscal year.”

Now, Harlan explained, the department is deep into planning for the next fiscal year. He noted that it, of course, involves multiple scenarios depending on where revenues are at.

“We’re positive at this point — based on our renewal rates for football, which are trending really close to what they were last year,“ Harlan said. “We’re hoping for a full football season. We’re positive in that regard knowing that we have to be realistic, too. So as we look at our budget, our primary focus will always be making sure our student-athletes have what they need to succeed in all regards.”

As such, Harlan acknowledged that they’re really going to focus on their operations to see things that make sense.

“Because at the end of the day, our folks that work here are what makes it all happen for our student-athletes. So we’re going to do everything we can to protect all of them as we go forward,” he said. “Anything that we do in our budget is just going to be stuff we’re going to be thoughtful of — based on where we are with our revenues — but like I said we’re going to be really focused on our operations before anything else.”

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