The issues facing the Wildcats in lost offseason

There are no spring practices. There are no spring games, no spring workouts.

Even those returning early in the fall or late summer to kick off the 2020 football season may find it difficult to recoup all the time and missed opportunity that the coronavirus pandemic has caused.

That said, everything is virtual, for now. With only up to two hours of mandated zoom meetings a week, positional coaches will struggle to get in everything they need to in that little time frame.

Those dilemmas are going to cause some real issues in the near future. There is a flip side as, when done correctly, a program may be able to get a leg up and its competition.

“Biggest obstacle for new staffs vs. old staffs is spring practices and spring game being canceled. Sets the new staffs behind on installation. The players can only watch so much film from previous stops,” one SEC assistant told Bud Elliott of 247 Sports.

With a myriad of graduate assistants and even permanent staff typically a rotating door for even some of the conference’s most pristine programs, missing out on these experience will be hurdle in preparing for the new season.

However, the impact reaches further than just getting the right relationship with the staff.

Being physically prepared and where the positional coaches and trainers need players to be weight-wise is an important aspect of the game that could be lost as everything shifts to an online format for the foreseeable future.

An ACC assistant that also spoke with Elliott echoed those thoughts.

“We could have one kid we want to be 300 pounds show back up at 340 and another we want at 300 show back up at 270,” an ACC assistant said.

According to Elliott, it may not be that players do not want to put in the work, but the simple fact that some, potentially the bulk, do not have that type of home workout set up with the majority of gyms around the country also shut down.

While the impact on Kentucky’s up-and-coming football program isn’t certain, it seems reasonable to assume that they’re going through the same hardships as everyone else, especially since they brought in several new coaches for the 2020 season.

Belk Bowl champions in 2019, the Wildcats should be primed for another season in which they’ll again compete with the SEC’s best.