EUGENE, Ore. — Days after the Pac-12 Conference announced it is postponing fall sports, coaches from the University of Oregon and Oregon State University about how players reacted to the news.
Head football coach at the University of Oregon, Mario Cristobal, said it wasn’t easy to tell his players and that it was difficult for everyone, the players and the coaches because they invest so much into the sport.
It was the same reaction Oregon State University head coach Jonathan Smith got from his team.
“It was tough, obviously when the news broke, I asked them what they wanted to do and they wanted to continue,” said Smith.
Both schools are going to continue with practice but the University of Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens said this about practice going forward, “The direction that we've been given at this point, is they can stay in the status they were in before this decision was made, so in football, they were in the 20 hours that included some walkthroughs.”
How long student-athletes will be able to keep that schedule still hasn’t been decided.
Oregon State University’s athletic director Scott Barnes said he expects the NCAA along with the Pac-12 will inform the universities how many hours they’ll be allowed to practice a week in the near future.
While there won’t be a home game for any school, for the rest of this year, both sides are going to take advantage of the time they have together.