West Alabama AD, Coach Discuss Postponed Football Season

LIVINGSTON, AL. — The University of West Alabama's football program saw its hopes dashed for a 2020 season on Wednesday as the Gulf South Conference announced its plan to postpone competition in basketball, football, soccer, and volleyball until at least Jan. 1, 2021.

The NCAA Division II UWA Tigers, coming off a 6-5 season, were planning to hold voluntary player workouts this week when the news came down.

"The hardest part was standing in front of the team and telling them," head coach Brett Gilliland told Patch on Thursday. "You only get one college experience, so it's a big blow to them. They’re here to be students and here to graduate, but a large part of their life is football. A lot of work and hours goes into the time to get to games in the fall. It's a big gut punch to them."

The announcement of a postponed season might have hurt, Gilliland said, but it didn't come as any surprise, especially after several UWA football players and other student-athletes tested positive for COVID-19.

"We just saw it start building up over the last week or so," he said, as the last week saw both the Big Ten and Pac-12 become the first Power 5 conferences to postpone their 2020 fall sports seasons.

UWA Athletic Director Bobby Wallace told Patch on Thursday the university was testing all students as they return, with in-person classes slated to start on Monday.

In considering a budget dwarfed by the likes of in-state SEC programs like Alabama and Auburn, Wallace said it would've simply been too expensive for the university and others like it to implement the necessary protocols that would protect all parties involved. While major universities turn big profits allowing them to afford large-scale testing and supplies, Division II programs, for the most part, are not as financially comfortable.

"[Money] is a major thing for us," Wallace commented. "We’re in a whole different situation [than large universities] and it's in the best interest of the university."

Wallace acknowledged the severity of the ongoing pandemic and underscored the need to take any and all measures to protect the university's population, but lamented what could be lost after so much was put in over the last year by players and coaches in the hopes a 2020 season would get the green light.

A three-time Division II national champion as head coach at the University of North Alabama, Wallace also walked the sidelines as head coach for UWA from 2006-2010 and said he can personally relate to the frustrations and concerns of the players and coaches impacted.

Under the current circumstances, though, he said the right decision was made.

"I feel for the student-athletes who have worked so hard to get themselves in the position in the fall to have a good season, especially since we still don’t know what the plans will be for them going forward," Wallace said. "Hopefully we will play some in the spring and get their eligibility, but obviously not all people can do that because some have plans for their lives moving ahead."

If there is a silver lining, Wallace said it could come in saving on the myriad necessary expenses associated with running a competitive college football program.

"In the long run, it will save money for the university, simply because we won’t have to travel, or stay in hotels and eating on the road," he said. "With equipment and stuff we buy, it can be utilized for next year."

Spring Football, Changes

During the build-up over the last week or so as reports came in of different major NCAA conferences cancelling or postponing their 2020 football seasons, Gilliland said he was in close contact on calls and in meetings awaiting a final answer while trying to get a better understanding of the situation unfolding.

Gilliland, a record-setting former UWA quarterback, was headed into his seventh season his alma mater and doing so as the school's winningest coach with a 43-26 record.

In the looming uncertainty for what the latest round of changes could mean for his players, the coach said there are more questions than answers at the moment.

"We're getting things set up, doing a lot with our seniors and each individual person’s plan," Gilliland said. "If they want to stay here, and that’s our hope, we make sure they have a good plan in place."

Gilliland said players participated in voluntary workouts in July, before taking a break to rest going into August.

"We were in kind of an off period anyways in our own system," he said. "We were planning on this week being another week of voluntary workouts, but we stopped that before it ever got started. It's all day-to-day right now and classes start Monday, so we're just making sure they are all set and understanding the protocols."

As it stands, the Tigers will not be able to play football until the first of next year at the earliest, but Gilliland expressed optimism at the prospect of a spring season. He then said plans could include a truncated season that doesn't break the NCAA's 50% threshold for games played, which means the season would not count toward the eligibility of players.

"I think there are a lot of possibilities with [spring football], but one thing our conference made pretty clear is they want to make sure when we have a full season, it's a meaningful full season," he said. "If that’s not possible then I could see us playing a handful of competition games and it not counting as a regular season."

On the recruiting trail, Gilliland said the uncertainty spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact because the staff had been hard at work and was late in the recruiting process for the year.

"It's hampered that and continuing to hamper it some," he said, before pointing out that high school football was still moving forward across much of UWA's recruiting scope. "Most [high schools] are still on course to get the season in, so we will get to see some of them."

Wallace, looking ahead to what the spring could bring, said he has already weathered numerous changes on the administrative end and was learning more each day as the pandemic continues to wear on college athletics.

"It’s been quite hectic," he said. "There are just a lot of Zoom meetings, a lot of reading of NCAA guidelines, NCAA rulings and decisions, trying to put it all together to be sure we’re doing all the things we’re supposed to do. It’s hard to close your facilities down, but then you have to monitor [students]. In places like the weight room, you're making sure they are sanitizing and make sure they're wearing masks. But it's just been a lot of meetings and a lot of changes."

Disappointment was a given for the UWA community in the wake of the announcement, but Wallace said the decision was understood by most as one made out of an abundance of care for public health and the safety of those at the university and in the community.

"I don’t think there’s anybody who was upset with our decision or disagreed with it," he said. "But there’s disappointment there. Our home football games in the fall are quite the social event. We did everything here we could to try to move forward, but got to a point where we couldn’t do it, so we’re just going to try to look at things closely in the spring."

Gilliland went on to say his staff is using the ongoing situation as a teaching tool for student-athletes as it relates to the changes and hard realities life can bring without warning. Once the pandemic is over, he hopes his players will come out stronger from the experience.

"We appreciate the great support of people who have reached out and who are really bummed out, but we're going to use this like everything we do," he said. "We can control what we can and what we can't, we will respond to and deal with accordingly."