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Sam Pittman will not get to host any prospect camps during his first summer as Arkansas’ head coach.
The UA Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to suspend all athletic and academic in-person camps through the summer of 2020, as well as all face-to-face classes for the summer term. The moves are in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
When he spoke to the media via teleconference last month, Pittman said they had dates for summer camps, but didn’t release them because everything was still up in the air.
The Razorbacks hosted a pair of Junior Days and also had a few visitors on other days before the country came to a grinding halt, with the NCAA extending its recruit dead period through May 31. That is also the date through which all athletics activities have been suspended by the SEC.
“We are in contact with the high school kids, ‘When this all breaks up, come see us,’ you know,” Pittman said on March 20. “They understand it, too.”
This decision eliminates the bulk of the dates Arkansas’ new staff had to get Class of 2021 recruits on campus.
Although dates for Pittman’s summer camps had yet to be announced, the previous staff had seven last summer: a youth camp for kids aged 5-11, an overnight junior high camp, an overnight high school camp, a specialist camp, a padded offensive/defensive line camp, an elite passing academy and a single-day high school camp.
If the coronavirus forces the other 13 SEC schools to cancel their summer camps - which is likely to happen - it’s worth noting that this may not hurt Arkansas as much as the others because it has one of the more remote campuses in the SEC and tends to get fewer elite campers than other schools.
The Board of Trustees’ vote does not have any effect on the Razorbacks’ fall camp, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Aug. 1. However, it is unknown if they’ll be able to bring players back to campus - assuming the SEC allows in-person athletics activities after May 31 - for summer workouts if classes are still being held online.
If they don’t reconvene as a team until Aug. 1 for fall camp, the Razorbacks would have just five weeks to prepare for their Sept. 5 opener against Nevada. At that point, Arkansas’ players will have been apart for about 4.5 months with varying amounts of workout equipment and no supervision from nutritionists, strength staff and coaches.
Coaches are limited to only four hours per week for team meetings using video-conference technology, which the Razorbacks are using to teach their new offensive and defensive systems.
This time crunch has athletics directors and conference commissioners across the country planning for various what-ifs, including altering the football season.
