On Thursday, Sept. 24, ASU sophomore tight end Nolan Matthews woke up from a nap and checked his phone. An ESPN notification immediately popped out to him.
Pac-12 football was back.
Matthews said he expected this news after numerous reports indicated the conference was close on a decision to return to play, but he still couldn’t hide his excitement.
“And everybody was just excited to finally get a definitive answer on what was going to happen," Matthews said. "It was killing us ... and now finally gotten the reassurance that we're going to get to play was big.”
After previously postponing football and all sports competitions through the rest of 2020, the Pac-12 announced the resumption of football and winter sports thanks largely to its partnership with Quidel Corporation to provide daily rapid-results testing to student-athletes.
READ MORE: Pac-12 announces COVID-19 testing initiative for student-athletes
The football season officially returns on Nov. 7, when ASU will take on USC in Los Angeles. Teams will have five weeks to get into shape. However, this period is not quite like training camp, as ASU coach Herm Edwards put it.
"There’s really no training camp anymore because we're in school,” Edwards said in a Zoom press conference last week. “We have to divide 20 hours in five days because we have to give them two days off. How do you split that up? What does it look like while practicing?”
ASU announced Monday that fully padded practices will start on Oct. 9.
Edwards said the team's practice regiment is similar to what it was before the announcement. Players are working through individual drills with helmets on, but have yet to start practicing fully padded drills.
Although players have been continuing with that plan, ASU senior safety Evan Fields said there is new energy within the team.
“The day we came back after we found out, it was a whole new vibe,” Fields said. “It completely shifted. It went from relaxed to intense. We are all ready and have a goal to reach. It was like we were on red light and it turned green."
That goal ASU wants to reach, Fields said, is to win the conference, and returning to play renewed that purpose.
Matthews shared that sentiment, but also expressed this is a vital season for him. Last season, he appeared in just six games as a tight end and caught six passes, including a touchdown.
“This is really my kind of coming out party,” Matthews said. “Last year, I played and started a couple games. But I didn't really have the production that I really wanted. So, my mindset is just go out there and basically just do the best I can to prove everybody right for trying to bring me here.“
Edwards said his whole team is excited, but they need to stay smart.
He called the coronavirus the "opponent we can’t see" and shared concerns with the return to play. Edwards pointed out that a college football team has around 110 players plus dozens of staff members, making the management of space to reduce the spread of COVID-19 complicated.
“Imagine this: one of the backup quarterbacks — we have five of them, two on scholarship — one of them gets it,” Edwards said. “They’re sitting in the room with the quarterbacks. Then I have no quarterback or coach for two weeks. I’ll tell you what we’re doing then, we’re forfeiting, postponing."
He says his quarterbacks, including sophomore starter Jayden Daniels, are in a hypothetical "bubble" in the locker room to decrease their chances of contracting COVID-19.
“I don’t have anyone close to (Daniels), and I told them, 'Don’t talk to the guy,'" Edwards said. "I told Jayden, 'Don’t talk to anybody.' If you’re going to talk to him, put a mask on.”
The Pac-12's statement regarding its return highlighted the conference leaders's belief that new developments in testing created an environment safe to play in.
But while the coronavirus continues to bring more uncertainty into the sports world, the Sun Devils finally have a start date to prepare for.
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