Rutgers football opens training camp

Rutgers players run at the start of a training camp practice in August 2016. (John Munson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

(John Munson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Imagine your expanded work schedule in a 30-hour day, a 10-day week, a six-week month or a 14-month year.

It seems ... exhausting? Out of whack? Wrong?

Tell it to the college football player who just had his calendar lengthened.

Only the NCAA could pass a rule banning the grueling and sometimes-dangerous 2-a-day training camp practices and still find a way to screw the student-athletes it is trying to protect.

The rationale behind the change is a good one given that studies have determined that injuries happen most frequently during training camp, and 16 medical organizations are on board with the NCAA's edict, according to CBSSports.com.

Applaud the thinking, but not the methodology. As the rule change was praised in most circles, the hypocrisy flew under the radar.

Because the new rule coincides with the NCAA's recent waiver that allows the college football preseason -- capped at 29 practices -- to begin one week earlier.

In other words, college football players can no longer be forced to practice twice in the same day, but they can be made to take on an extra week of responsibilities in an era where the NCAA says it wants to lessen the student-athlete burden.

That's right. There aren't fewer practice hours, fewer hits and fewer risks for injuries. Just more time off in between the physical punishments.

Actually, it could create more hits and more practice time as an unintended consequence.

Iowa's Kirk Ferentz -- the Big Ten's longest-tenured coach -- criticized the rule Wednesday because it shortens the summer for players.

Others are likely to follow suit because the two changes taken together seem to ask more of the players without really limiting the exposure to injury at all.

This is not an argument to bring back leather helmets -- or even a suggestion to keep 2-a-days.

The days of the Junction Boys -- when Texas A & M coach Bear Bryant held practices from dusk until dawn in the sweltering temperatures -- are, thankfully, long gone and replaced by knowledge about the effects of concussions and heat stroke on the body.

Through the last three coaching regimes at Rutgers, a handful of 2-a-days per year mostly consisted of a morning practice with live tackling and an evening session that is less demanding because it is both shorter and involves less contact with players in shell pads.

Take that off the schedule as a few of the 29 practices and what will you get instead? More full-fledged three-hour practices that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

The NCAA did not reply over two days to a NJ Advance Media request for an interview with a NCAA Sports Science Institute official or for data that supports the idea that a longer layoff between full-contact practices is safer than a shorter layoff and a less-demanding second practice.

"The (Division I) Council's action reinforces our commitment to the health and safety of our student-athletes," chairperson and Northwestern athletics director Jim Phillips said in a statement.

"We continue to be guided by the recommendations from medical professionals, coaches and administrators and the strong support for discontinuing two contact practices in the same day."

And yet it seems that the simplest solutions were overlooked when the extra week was added:

Cut the number of practices to 25

Follow the NFL's lead

What makes 29 the magic number of practices needed to prepare for the season? In the interest of student-athlete safety, why not fully commit to scaling back?

Especially considering that the NCAA also is allowing for the first time two hours per week of team walk-throughs with players during the summer. There's the made up cumulative lost practice time.

Just as it did before, a single day of college football training camp still can include a three-hour practice and a two-hour walk-through. The latter is defined as a workout where contact is prohibited, helmets and pads are not used, and conditioning activities are not included.

Three continuous hours of recovery -- a time period which can include player meetings, film review, medical treatment and meals -- are required between a practice and a walk-through.

A little semantics fine-tuning could meet the NFL standard.

While the lawsuit-wary NFL got rid of 2-a-days in 2012, teams do have helmets-only evening "walk-throughs" the same day as practice. If the NCAA followed suit, teams could get to 29 practices without the extra week or the fear of 2-a-days tackling.

In today's climate, Arkansas and Georgia Tech both stopped 2-a-day practices on their own before the rule was passed. Others, like Georgia, scaled back to one 2-a-day during all of camp.

For the school, another week of training camp means another week of expenses in a time when athletics department finances are constantly scrutinized.

For the student-athlete, it's a bigger time commitment -- and possibly another match to reignite the debate on unionization and the scholarship as fair compensation.

"If you talk to our players -- and apparently some of our players have to talked to players at other very prominent schools," Ferentz said, "the players are not in favor of it. I can tell you that right now. They prefer the 2-a-days because it's shorter time on the field."

College football players already are committed to weight training, conditioning and film review for eight hours per week during the summer. Now, add in the new walk-throughs and take away the brief interval between the end of summer workouts and the start of training camp.

For a week in late July student-athletes will be juggling classes and practices -- just like in the fall and spring semesters -- at one time of year when that historically doesn't happen.

At Rutgers, for instance, the second session of 2017 summer classes ends Aug. 4. The brief time off between summer workouts and training camp is gone.

Not only did being a college football player just become more of a full-time job.

You lost your summer vacation, too.

Ryan Dunleavy may be reached at rdunleavy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rydunleavy. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.