NCAA Division III recently adopted rules to allot every sport a certain number of days during a period of time to practice. That is every sport except football.
DIII football teams are allowed 16 days of practice over a five-week span during the spring. Players can wear shells for four practices, helmets for 12, and shoulder pads for only four.
To put it politely, Division III coaches are not happy.
“We get 16 practices, but we can’t play football,” one coach said. “Does baseball have to go out during fall ball and play without a glove or a bat? It’s just insane.”
“It ends up being like an offseason program in high school,” another coach said. “It’s great for the skill players, but your linemen aren’t getting a lot done in helmets for most of the workouts.”
Coaches have their thoughts when asked why football schools aren’t allowed to follow the same rules as every other sport in NCAA.
“I think it makes it easier for them to police. Once you start, you can’t split it up,” one coach said. “You can’t have two weeks of practice before spring break and two weeks after. I think it’s easier for them to track with the large number of teams in Division III.”
“We’ve asked that same question because, during CoVID, we went to the days model. We had 114 days to practice, and that was awesome,” another coach added. “It gave us a lot of flexibility in terms of how we set our schedule. We still had practice days left over at the end of the season.”
Let me understand this. Every sport, including football, was allowed to follow the days model for practice during the CoVID-19 pandemic. Every sport continues to follow the days model, except football. If it doesn’t make sense, you’re not alone.
“The truth of the matter is that all universities in Division III get a vote on football policies, even if they don’t have football,” one coach said. “They still get to vote on what we can do, so it really boils down to a lot of schools that don’t have football voting against it.”
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