On June 22, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced that high schools could resume full-contact football practices and scrimmages.

For Toledo area high school football coaches, that has allowed them to regain some normalcy in what has been an offseason that has been anything but normal because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Anthony Wayne head coach Andy Brungard said the update has allowed the Generals to get in live work and develop rapport among the offense and defense.

“For us, it gives us the opportunity to go out and throw on air,” Brungard said. “Our quarterbacks get to throw with our receivers, and we’re able to be in groups of more than 10 out on the field. There’s a little bit of excitement, and it’s starting to feel a little bit more like football. We all had helmets on and were throwing passing routes and learning patterns and actually speaking football jargon again.”

St. John’s Jesuit head coach Larry McDaniel likened what the Titans are able to do now to NFL-style organized team activity workouts.

“What it allows us to do is get out on the field and get the formations down and get to have an offense vs. a defense and a defense vs. an offense,” McDaniel said.

“It’s kind of like the NFL OTAs, and that’s really what I’m looking forward for us to be able to do.”

Coaches have also had to make adjustments to weight room training with new safety protocols.

“We have 90 varsity and 30 freshmen, so we have 13 groups of 10 trying to filter through in different sessions,” Brungard said. “It makes it challenging but, at the same time, it’s good to see the kids. I’ve seen our assistant coaches put in a lot more time, and I think that is what you are going to see in most programs is it puts more of a time commitment on coaches to put in a lot of hours to get everybody through the workouts.”

McDaniel said one of the biggest differences this June has been that his players have not been able to attend college camps.

“The biggest issue with June was the fact that we weren’t able to hit the ground running in our weight room and kids weren’t able to go to college camps,” McDaniel said. “I have a couple of kids that are looking to earn scholarships — and potentially can — and they have no way of knowing what they can do. It’s been a lot different this June.”

Genoa coach Paul Patterson said the Comets have been working out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays beginning at 6:45 a.m., with nine athletes at a time in shifts of 45 minutes. Despite having new safety protocols, Patterson said this June hasn’t been too much different for his program than a normal offseason.

“Our June hasn’t been much different than it has been in the past,” Patterson said. “We stay away from football activities in June just because of other sports — basketball usually has stuff going on, as well as baseball. We have our workouts and conditioning and, thankfully, we’ve been able to do that in the month of June. That aspect, not much has changed. We’re working out in small groups of about nine kids.”

Adjustments have been the name of the game this offseason, and coaches have had to adapt on the fly as new rules come in from Gov. DeWine and others.

“It’s what you make it,” McDaniel said. “If you make it difficult, it’s going to be difficult. If you say this is the normal stuff that we have to go through, then that’s what we do. It’s so applicable to the sport and what you are asking kids to do all the time. We always talk to our kids about embracing hard things, and this is a hard thing. From the standpoint of it being harder, that’s just another challenge. That’s how we look at it.”

Brungard says he and his staff feel like they are about a month or so behind where they would be in a normal offseason.

“I think there is still anticipation of will we have a season or not?” Brungard said. “Until you’re able to truly scrimmage or get up against another team, there is still that kind of dulled excitement. We’re excited to be out there but, until something is decided, we are not truly bought into the fact that there is going to be some competition happening.”

McDaniel holds out hope for a high school football season, but knows there are many hurdles to clear before that point.

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” McDaniel said. “It seems like there is an uptick in the number of young people that are being diagnosed. Once that happens, it changes everything.

“Traditionally, what happens is things roll down hill. The NFL hasn’t said one thing about it, and that scares me. The fact that they are radio silent really does scare me. We follow suit. If they say no season and college says no season, I know for a fact that it will trickle down to us.”

First Published June 27, 2020, 8:58 p.m.