A delayed start: DWU ready to plan for shortened fall camp, 9-game schedule - The Daily Republic

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The NAIA announced fall sports won’t start practices until Aug. 15, and football games won’t be played until Sept. 12. The disappointment from DWU football coach Ross Cimpl is geared toward the significance of not playing in-state rival Dakota State University, rather than the NAIA’s actual decision.

Cimpl’s pleased with the NAIA making a decision in early June instead of waiting until its July 1 deadline, giving he and his staff time to develop a summer and fall camp plan. During a year when spring ball was also canceled in March, making a concise plan to navigate a shortened offseason is key. And that process can now start.

“At least we have something to go off of now, and now we can start putting our plan together,” Cimpl said. “For me, that was our biggest thing, having a plan put together and something we can go off of.”
DWU’s nine-game conference schedule will begin at Hastings College (Neb.) on Sept. 12. It will be the first time since 2010 the Tigers and DSU won’t meet. The home-and-away series will resume next season at Joe Quintal Field and in Madison in 2022.

Now, without a non-conference game and a bye week to prepare for Great Plains Athletic Conference play, the Tigers will start preparing for a conference its gone 3-15 in over the past two seasons.

It puts an extra emphasis on the coaching staff, which still has a vacant offensive coordinator position, finding ways to change and implement new aspects to its scheme, as it replaces six defensive starters and standout running back Luke Loudenburg. It will have less time and fewer practices before school begins on Aug. 31.

“I know fall camp can be long and monotonous sometimes for players, but the fact of the matter is, during the fall camp all you’re focused on is the football part of it,” Cimpl said. “You don’t have classes yet. And now, to shorten that fall camp period to essentially a week, it really emphasizes the reps and evaluations that coaches have to do.”

Cimpl is still working through how fall camp will look. As of now, the Tigers are focused on summer workouts with strength and conditioning coach Kyle Hobbs and Zoom meetings to go over schemes. On-field reps can’t be replicated, though.

Once DWU is able to hit the field, it’s striking a balance between evaluating its incoming freshmen, developing physically after only being able to discuss scheme and technique for months and learning the scheme -- and possibly making adjustments if a new offensive coordinator is hired with enough time before the season.

“I think it can hurt us as much as we want it to hurt us, in the fact that going in there blindly saying, ‘This is what we’ve always done and we’re going to keep the same process,’ ” Cimpl said. “If we go about it that way, we are going to hurt ourselves because we don’t have the amount of time that we normally have.”
Practices will also physically look different. The GPAC has created a Return to Play task force, “to start the process of what fall sports will look like for this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a press release sent Tuesday. While Cimpl knows when the season will start, the guidelines needed to be followed will determine what it looks like once it returns.

“We have 100 guys on our roster right now, and can we have them out there at one time?” Cimpl said. “Do we have to split up our practices a little bit where we only have one side of the ball on the field at one time? … It just adds another dimension of safety measures that need to be taken.”

DWU is still searching for its next offensive coordinator, who will also coach the offensive line. Loren Endsley left for an assistant coach position at the University of South Dakota in March.

Since then, Cimpl, who doubles as the team’s defensive coordinator, has led the offensive line during Zoom meetings.

“I think our guys have done a nice job of handling that situation,” he said.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there hasn’t been a determined start date for the new offensive coordinator. DWU also hasn’t been able to get any of the candidates on campus.

If hired early enough, though, Cimpl is confident the new hire could still add his own wrinkles into the scheme for the upcoming season.

“If we’re able to fill this position July 1, there’s still a little time we could make some adjustments or modifications or terminology (changes),” Cimpl said.

During recent Zoom meetings, DWU has opened up lines of communication for its players to speak openly about the current protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Cimpl gave his players a chance to talk about their life experiences and what they can do to help.

“We’ve talked about appropriate action, what appropriate action can we take,” Cimpl said. “I hope when we get to point of playing in games, I hope our guys are open and honest and we can have a conversation about some of those things that could potentially happen, or do we want to send a message and what message is that.”

When asked if Cimpl would support a player kneeling during the national anthem, he said he’d need to talk to his team before having a concrete answer.

“I don’t have an answer for that right now,” Cimpl said. “I’d like to talk to our players and really see what they feel.”

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