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COVID-19

Pac-12 Conference extends ban on organized team activities

Martin Stadium is seen on Wednesday, March 25, 2020, on WSU's campus in Pullman, Wash. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)

Pac-12 student-athletes, including the football players at Washington State still waiting to hold their first practice under new coach Nick Rolovich, won’t be able to regroup for organized team activities until at least May 31, according to a decision by the conference’s CEOs on Monday.

The suspension will carry on for one more month, with “limited exceptions based upon student-athlete well-being” and “periodic re-evaluations over the coming weeks should circumstances warrant a change in policy,” per a statement from the conference.

The ban includes no organized, in-person team activities and no in-person voluntary workouts, film study sessions, meetings, technique drills or practices. It also doesn’t allow virtual or online supervised voluntary workouts and skill instruction, regardless of the location.

There is some leeway, however, for other virtual group activities. The Pac-12 is permitting two hours of film study per week for football players and four hours for all other sports. The conference says it will lobby to increase the two-hour time limit for football.

Coaches are allowed to recommend written, self-directed workout plans, and taped demonstration videos or workout plans are permitted “in order to demonstrate proper form and technique.”

Additionally, “in-person, on-campus nutrition may be provided in circumstances where student-athletes are unable to leave campus, and off-campus nutrition is limited to distribution of products normally available on campus.”

“I don’t think this is a time where football should really open their mouth too much as far as ‘poor me,’” Rolovich said on a conference call with reporters last week. “I think when the time is right and the people making decisions feel the time is right, we’ll get back to it and when we get back to it we’ll attack it with everything we’ve got. But there’s zero part of me that feels bad for not doing football in this situation. We wouldn’t have their full attention.”