Like everyone at Dartmouth College, Buddy Teevens has been forced to do his teaching remotely this spring. The coronavirus pandemic has mandated it.
The longtime Big Green football coach was supposed to start five weeks of Ivy League-permitted spring practices this Tuesday. They were to be the first significant step in planning his team’s defense of last year’s shared league championship.
But with the college closed to students, who are taking classes remotely, and the usual procedure banned, Teevens has had to change things around. He calls it “A&I — adjust and improvise.”
“I’ve been saying it with our folks, and this is a classic example,” Teevens said recently from St. Augustine, Fla., where he’s extended his spring break with the shutdown of the Dartmouth campus. “There’s no prescribed plan or operation. We know what we need to do. We’re doing it at a distance by ourselves. We can be effective and we can do it, with some level of creativity.”
In an ordinary spring, Big Green players would be spreading out 12 approved team practices over the span of five weeks, usually on a schedule of Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings. It’s an important time to evaluate and educate, Teevens said, but positions for the fall aren’t determined by a dozen get-togethers in April or May.
The workouts, however, are a good start toward fall preseason. And they’ll be missed.
“Mental reps are the biggest thing during this time,” fifth-year senior defensive back D.J. Avery said from his Fayetteville, Ga., home. “As long as you are right in your mental approach and update all you want to do, you don’t want to lose that information.
“You’re looking at past games or past practices, going through your head imagining what you want to do better or do different on a play. Especially for the young guys who aren’t all comfortable with the playbook, it can be a big help.”
With no on-site practices allowed, the Ivy League is permitting two-hour video conferences instead. Teevens plans both full team meetings as well as position-specific discussions with assistant coaches.
“The interactive thing is one of the joys of coaching,” he said. “You have the chance to work directly with younger people, but we can’t do that as regularly. Modern technology and the capability that Zoom presents can at least help us see, but it’s not the same or as close as it’s going to get. … I wish it wasn’t this way, but it is.”
In addition to the online meetings, fifth-year senior wide receiver/kick returner Drew Estrada said Dartmouth’s conditioning staff has done a good job of producing exercise routines to follow while players are away.
“As you know, a lot of the gyms across the country are closed, and a lot of us are forced to stay at home and do workouts,” Estrada said from his house in Argyle, Texas, north of Dallas. “They’ve done a good job giving us body-weight workouts — I just got done with a workout — and with the free time, it gives you a lot of time to get stuff you need to do done.”
The one area that Dartmouth may suffer from the lack of spring action is the offensive line.
Because the Big Green did so well last season, Teevens was able to rotate a lot of players into game situations on both sides of the ball. Still, Dartmouth graduated three starters from the offensive trenches, and spring practice would have given coaches time to begin assessing options.
Dartmouth finished 9-1 last year, and 6-1 in Ivy League play, sharing the title with Yale.
“We have had guys that have backed up and seen legitimate playing time,” Teevens said. “We all do it by where you were at the end of the season. Things change in the spring, but with no spring (practice), where will you be at the end?”
Dartmouth freshmen will also be hurt by the change in plans, with no means of impressing upon the Big Green coaching staff how they’ve adapted over the course of a school year. And, Avery pointed out, there’s nothing that can replace the opportunity to forge bonds with your teammates on the field.
“It’s hard to look at the bright side of this,” Estrada noted. “I think, for me as an individual, a challenge like this is something that tests how much you love the game, especially when you’re away from your teammates. It could have benefits in the end, how you operate on your own. How we can become flexible to these circumstances, that could prove beneficial. I guess that’s something that I can look forward to.”
The Big Green can also look ahead to Aug. 22 and the start of preseason camp — if all goes well. If it doesn’t, Dartmouth will simply fall back to Teevens’ mantra.
“We’ve been having conversations at different levels about what if, rather than operating on what is,” Teevens said. “There’s no spring practice. We anticipate there will be summer workout schedules. Then our preseason will follow.
“If that changes, it’s A&I, baby. Figure it out.”
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.c om or 603-727-3226.