The late Raiders owner Al Davis was famous for the saying “Just win, baby!”, and one of my favorite GIFs of all time.
If old Al was still with us, he may recoin the phrase as “Just be flexible, baby!” Ok, he probably would still be focused on winning or finding the next guy that can run a 4.2 40-yard dash, but you get the point.
In what will be a football season that will never be forgotten, we’ve seen football teams be flexible in many ways, but none more than scheduling.
Typically if your football schedule isn’t set by Christmas the season before, then something is wrong. This year though, just be flexible.
Need to move your game to a county that allows more fans to attend? That would have been scoffed at nine months ago. Now, let's do it.
Opponent cancelled on a Wednesday because of Covid? Whatever, just get on the phone and find a new game or in some cases, enjoy the free bye week.
There’s obviously no playbook for coaches and athletic directors on what to do when a team cancels a game you are supposed to play because their team has become infected. It’s been fairly evenly split on teams choosing to stay home and take the week off and teams that have gone to somewhat distant lengths to find a game.
On the Missouri side, it created a fantastic game last week in Class 3. Blair Oaks, who had not lost a regular season game since 2014 and Valle Catholic, who has recently moved to Class 3 after running through Class 1, both found themselves needing a game.
While they each could have taken a week off or found a lesser opponent to run the score up against, the met up in what turned out to be one of the best games of the regular season.
Valle picked up the win 35-28, but in a year when absolutely nothing is promised, these teams got to play a game in what was a big-time atmosphere against an equal opponent.
The fact is, there’s going to be more flexibility needed. The cases aren’t dropping, especially in rural Missouri.
What the next four weeks of the regular season and the hopefully six weeks or so of playoffs look like? No one knows but be flexible.
