ORANGE PARK - With a new directive from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, area schools will maintain online status until June 3 with sports to probably follow suit as area athletes took yet another blow to their spring season.

"It's all an unknown right now," said Orange Park High football coach Tom Macpherson. "We don't know what they are going to let us do. I don't see how we can be back on the field or with 80-90 players in a locker room with the close contact of football in two or three weeks. My take though is that there is a lot of things outside of football to be concerned about. It's hard to say that football should be a high priority. The overall well-being of society is top priority."

Football, which was to open the annual spring campaigns on April 27, now has a more uncertain future.

"It's a real exercise in futility," said Oakleaf High coach Frank Garis. "We stay in contact and try to get face-to-face on the computers to check up on them. We want to keep them up on their school work as much as their preparing for football."

One checkpoint for Garis is that Oakleaf has a football-related weightlifting class.

"We are fortunate with that because it's a class we can access who is attending and there is a test," said Garis. "About 95 percent of the football team is in the class and we can monitor them from there and make assignments. It tells us which kids are willing to put in the work."

Garis noted the summer preparations for Florida football comes with acclimatization to heat and humidity.

"We can ask the kids to workout hard over the summer on their own to be ready by July and August," said Garis. "We, as coaches, have reduced the heat situations on our teams with summer conditioning. We will probably lose a week of football when this all starts just to reestablish heat conditioning. One idea may be to move the start date up a week in July. There is a big difference when the pads and helmets are on in August if kids have not trained for the heat."

For the FHSAA, the summer start of training and conditioning programs is slated for July 27 (non-contact) and August 1 (contact start).

From FHSAA:

Important Dates

First practice date - non contact (Week 5) – July 27

First practice date - contact (Week 5) – Aug. 1

Preseason classic competitions (Week 7) – Aug. 12-15

First regular season playing date (Week 8) – Aug. 20

Roster due on Home Campus (Week 8) – Aug. 20

Last district playing date (Week 17) – Oct. 24

Last regular season playing date (Week 18) – Oct. 30

For Ridgeview High football coach Matt Knauss, who struggled through his first year with a 1-9 record that had some promising moments of a resurgence into the Panther program, the momentum of a strong finish last year has been sidelined by the shutdown.

"It's a bummer not only for our football preparations, but also for our weightlifting team that was fired up for a strong post season, said Knauss. "A lot of the football guys took to the weightlifting team and made that program as strong for a district, region run. It's not ideal to miss two very important months in the springboard to fall football."

Knauss was still optimistic that the kids are bought in to the upcoming fall.

"We had a meeting after last year and I asked them if they wanted to avoid another 1-9 season," said Knauss. "It wasn't fun, but they bought into working hard to changing that next season. Building a program starts in November right after the season, not July and August."

As far as preparations for a summer preseason training and conditioning regimen and a possible fall season that, hopefully, starts with preseason games in the Aug. 12-15 week, Macpherson was apprehensive on a solid start date.

"I'm sure whatever the district and the FHSAA decide, they will have to factor in that football is a close-up contact sport, there is no doubt about that," said Macpherson. "There is a lot of close contact not only on the field, but in the locker rooms and the weight rooms."

Area coaches are still preparing on a timeline that mirrors past summers with regard to the phase-by-phase preparation for an upcoming football season.

"This is first time in my 22 years of coaching that I haven't been on campus in two weeks or more," said Macpherson. "We are way behind the eight ball as far as the paperwork involved, the ordering of new equipment; uniforms and pads and such and putting together a playbook."

Middleburg High football coach Karl Smeltzer cited online use of programs like Huddle and others to keep his athletes sharp.

"Most coaches are in Huddle online and can stay in contact in many ways with it," said Smeltzer. "We can have group meetings by position, by coach and between teammates. It's mostly on the kids to respond and use the tools we give them to stay in the game. Just like other sports, some will and some will just lay on the couch and watch TV."

Smeltzer coyly reminded his athletes that not adhering to their own conditioning and training regimen, whether via coach workouts or their own, could be consequential.

"I told them two days ago that, no matter when we are able to get back, there will be a fitness strength test that day you come back," said Smeltzer. "They may think about missing a workout, but we will know it very fast."

Macpherson's top takeaway from the Virus environment and the tragedy of losing an entire phase of football is that athletes, and not just football athletes, will hopefully now appreciate the opportunity to be an athlete.

"Football has always been there for a lot of kids; from Pop Warner to high school, and now it's been removed," said Macpherson. "I ask, 'How does it feel?' If we get back to normal, I'm going to talk about the takeaway and idea that those who just came to practice and maybe walked through things, will change their mindset to go all-out on each rep, go for one more weightlift rep on the bench or work on their read assignments when home. Prepare the best you can, finish the online classwork and come back with an attitude of realizing it can be removed again. Every player, from Tom Brady to an Orange Park High kid, in the past who played that last game eventually knows the feeling of that last game. It lasts the rest of your life. It's an awakening."