The message from head coach Dave Doeren and the players who were made available in a Zoom press conference with the media following Tuesday’s first practice of preseason camp was clear: they want to play this fall.

Getting there is going to require sacrifice, and with what Doeren summarized in a phrase that could be applied to everyone: “Common sense needs to be common right now.”

Although a few college football players across the country have opted out of this upcoming season due to health concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, Doeren has seen the opposite with the Wolfpack, thus far.

“These guys want in here bad right now,” Doeren said. “They really want to play. I don’t know … it just doesn’t seem on our football team, at least not yet, to be a topic that anyone brought up to a coach or a strength coach.

“If it happens, we’ll deal with it when it does, but at this point, it’s the opposite. It’s, ‘Coach, let’s go.’ I think they are very, very excited about the opportunity that they have. We’ll see how it continues. Obviously, there are a lot of things going around them nationally that they have to look at. Whatever they decide to do, we’ll support them and the guys that want to be a part of this.”

Doeren concluded with the understatement of the year: “It’s an interesting time in our sport, for sure.”

That includes a movement in the Pac-12 among players of that conference to negotiate with league leadership a series of demands centered around health, social justice and economic issues in order to play.

Doeren said that he has not been approached by any players on his team about that subject, but noted that they also just had their first team meeting in person on Monday.

“They haven’t brought it to my attention,” Doeren said. “Not that they won’t, just hasn’t happened yet.”

The message Doeren has for the players about playing football in 2020 is simple: if you want a season, sacrifices have to be made.

“These guys have talked for months and months and months about wanting to get back out there and play and earn the right to be in a certain position as a football team, to not be disappointed with their season [and] to be excited about the results of their season,” Doeren noted. “The biggest thing is just to protect it. Wear a mask when you are in public, wash your hands. … Don’t go to parties where there are people who haven’t been tested.

“You just have to be super smart. We’ve talked about social sacrifice quite a bit with our football team. You really want to have a season? You are just going to have to give up some things that you normally may not have to give up.”

Doeren noted that a poor decision could cost 10 other players 14 days due to quarantine in a contact tracing situation.

“As we all know, some of this is out of our control, too,” Doeren said. “You can go to your mailbox and all of the sudden get germs off it [and] you have no idea. So some of this is going to be challenging.”

It’s a sacrifice the players seem more than willing to accept.

“We want to play this year, and there are certain things we can’t do,” redshirt junior center Grant Gibson said. “We can’t go out and things like that because everybody on our team wants to play, and we’re willing to give up some things to be able to do that.

“If we can’t go out, then that’s fine with us. We want a chance to play.”

Redshirt junior linebacker Isaiah Moore added that being careful becomes even more serious now that students are starting to arrive back on campus.

“Everybody is not going to take the same precautions we are,” Moore admitted.

Both Moore and Gibson said that neither have had conversations with fellow teammates about opting out.

“I think that we all want to play,” Gibson said. “Everybody is itching to get out there.”

“We pretty much all are on the same page about us all wanting to play,” Moore stated.

Doeren likes the buy-in he has seen from the team so far — a squad eager to get back on the field and erase the memories of a 4-8 season in 2019.

“I really like this team,” Doeren said. “I don’t know how many games we’re going to win. We got to earn every one of those. But I do like their hunger. I do like their growth. I do like their dissatisfaction with what occurred before, and the things that we did in the offseason to be better.”

——

• Talk about it inside The Wolves' Den

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker

• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker

• Like us on Facebook