Don’t mess with a prep football coach’s summer schedule

Just when a football coach thinks he’s got it all figured out, along comes summer acclimatization.

Perhaps more than any other sport, football relies on a tight schedule. Balancing the needs of multiple levels and more than 100 athletes and families requires precision steeped in strong communication.

That’s why it struck such a chord last week when the IHSA Board of Directors scheduled a special meeting of the Legislative Commission to discuss shifting the practice start date for the 2026 football season five days earlier to Aug. 5.

Five days may not seem like much, but it’s monumental for coaches with schedules set down to the hour. You don’t mess with the summer.

The special meeting stems from the December approval of playoff football expansion from 32 to 48 teams in each of the eight classes. Because of the extra round needed to accommodate the expansion, the entire regular season was pushed back a week earlier.

That also meant shortening the preseason practice window by a week with the season opener moved to Aug. 21.

A shorter summer acclimatization window — implemented for athlete safety — is addressed in the text of the proposal, noting less restrictive rules for other IHSA sports and in surrounding states.

Despite shortening the required acclimatization period from 12 practice days for each football player, the proposal still passed overwhelmingly in a vote by the IHSA member schools.

Now, however, the IHSA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee has requested further analysis of the summer acclimatization period for football. That’s where the five extra days come in, pushing the start of practice back to Aug. 5.

The Legislative Committee meets Tuesday to discuss the proposal for an earlier start date. If they approve, the proposal goes to the member schools for a vote that’d take place between Jan. 29 and Feb. 12. A simple majority in favor would implement the new start date for the 2026 season.

Athletic departments are only now recovering from the jolt of expansion, which forced every 2026 football schedule to be adjusted. Some schools were left hunting for games when the jostled schedules didn’t match up with anticipated opponents.

Now comes the possibility of starting practice a week earlier.

It smacks right into the traditional dead week in early August when busy families finally get breathing room to take a vacation together. One week where football coaches manage to get free time with their own families.

The summer — already oh so short — might just become even shorter. And the squeeze on multisport athletes might become tighter as competition for their time intensifies.

I’m certainly no expert on acclimatization. I have no idea how much time is needed in the summer to protect the health of an athlete before they play a game.

But is there room for compromise? Maybe, as the passed proposal indicates, it makes sense to have football move closer to other fall sports such as boys soccer, where the summer acclimatization period is shorter.

Or maybe athletes with a certain amount of documented activity with their high school team in June and July could see their acclimatization time shortened in August.

In any case, families and coaches will simply have to adjust if practice moves up to Aug. 5. Summer schedules will be rewritten and vacations rescheduled.

But no one will like it.