Marcus Arroyo trying to keep UNLV players engaged and educated from a distance

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Wednesday, April 8, 2020 | 2 a.m.

First-year UNLV coach Marcus Arroyo would love nothing better than to be spending his mornings on the practice field, guiding the Rebels football team through spring sessions. He could be installing his offensive scheme, evaluating the roster, giving players individual attention and everything else that comes with being a head coach.

Learning on the job, in other words.

Instead, like the rest of the world, Arroyo spends most of his days at the computer, learning how to coach remotely. The COVID-19 outbreak has brought sports to a halt, so the only interaction Arroyo has with his coaching staff and his players is through a telephone or a webcam.

It’s not how he envisioned his first head coaching job starting off, but he’s putting all his energy into figuring it out. The Rebels are running their team the same way everyone is running things these days, relying on conference-call apps like Zoom and Skype to communicate remotely.

“The job has changed in every way [due to the pandemic],” Arroyo said. “No one in the country in this profession has done this. We’re in completely uncharted territory.”

Arroyo said the coaching staff holds daily meetings on Zoom in which they develop their agenda and then communicate it to the team. The coaching staff — including Arroyo himself — are doing their best to stay in regular contact with the roster, which is no easy task when talking about a college football team made up of nearly 100 players.

“What you lose with a football team is the contact with the guys,” Arroyo said. “That engagement is important.”

Making sure players stay safe and healthy is the team’s top priority, and Arroyo also wants them to keep up with their academic work. After that comes football, and Arroyo concedes that the team may not be as far along as they would be under normal, non-quarantine circumstances.

As a first-year head coach known for his work on the offensive side, Arroyo was hoping to use much of spring practice to install his offense. Players could have learned the basics of the playbook, as well as how Arroyo structures and runs his practices.

That time would have been just as valuable to Arroyo as it would be for the players.

“Obviously you lose football, and that phase of it for us is to be able to implement schemes and teach guys and be in meetings face to face,” Arroyo said. “Then there’s the physical activity. It’s the same for everyone; every team is going through this and we’re no different. But for us, the hardship is that we haven’t been able to be on the field together.

“I think what you can’t see in a classroom setting is how guys move,” he continued. “You don’t see any biomechanic pieces that are important in our game. You just don’t know those physical elements.”

Arroyo said he spent about a week before the shutdown giving the players an entry-level course in his schemes, but that hands-on experience is finished for now. The coaching staff sends video clips to players in order to help them understand how to execute Arroyo’s playbook, and it’s up to the players themselves to put in the mental work to get up to speed.

Arroyo mentioned the possibility of the NCAA allowing workouts later in the summer as a contingency for canceled spring practices, but the bottom line is that every team is going through the same thing, and whenever the 2020 season begins, the Rebels will have to be ready to take the field.

Arroyo knows this jumbled offseason won’t be a legitimate excuse for a slow start.

“We’ll have to be ready,” Arroyo said. “They’re not going to stop the season from starting because we’re not ready from spring ball. We’ll have no choice but to be ready.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.