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SALT LAKE CITY — As he watches his favorite NBA team dominate the Denver Nuggets on a blisteringly hot Friday afternoon, Britain Covey is comfortable and loose. It’s really his best life — he’s able to maintain the hometown bragging rights of the Utah Jazz with his football teammates.
His team is up by nearly 40 points — a defenseless performance by Denver — and he’s “perfectly content.” His prediction of the Jazz going to the playoffs late in the 2019 football season is now finally being realized, even though it’s been nearly a year since his scream-it-from-the-rooftop declaration was made — it’s still the same NBA season, after all.
“People told me we wouldn't get out of the first round. So as long as I win that bet, I'm fine,” he said.
The only thing missing for the starting slot receiver at the University of Utah — and it’s a big one — is a college football season. It’s the main reason he accepted a scholarship offer to the university.
At this point in the year, Covey would normally be weeks into Camp Kyle. He and a talented group of receivers — arguably its best — would be putting in the finishing touches to a fall camp that would eventually come to a close. The team would transition to in-season mode ahead of a formerly-scheduled kickoff against Utah’s in-state rival and Covey's hometown university.
Now, nothing — not even a set plan to start play in winter following a postponement of the season weeks ago by the Pac-12. So instead, Covey enjoys the NBA playoffs as the 2020 football season, or whatever’s left of it, remains a wait-and-see outlook.
In the weeks leading up to the Pac-12 postponing play through Jan. 1, 2021, Covey and his teammates prepared as though the season was still going to happen. Strength training, film, route running, doing everything necessary to be ready for an opportunity to once again compete for a South Division title, even with all the talent lost to the NFL after last season.
“It was kind of hard to stay really motivated with the uncertainty, but we kept pushing along thinking there might be a season,” Covey said.
But about two weeks before the eventual announcement, Covey said the players, and even the coaching staff, started “feeling the uncertainty rise.”
“It didn't seem almost plausible, with everything going on, that we were going to play. So there were many times when we’d come in from practice to be like, ‘any news? any news?’ but nobody would say anything,” Covey said. “And then eventually — once we heard the Big Ten canceled and we got a text from our athletic director saying, ‘Hey, team meeting tonight’ — everybody knew.
“It was pretty sad. Everybody was pretty heartbroken,” he added. “But obviously, there are many reasons for it, and we understand a lot of them, but it doesn't make it much easier.”
The team continues a form of practice, though it only takes place about three times per week and is far less rigorous than a normal fall period since there are no games officially scheduled until the 2021 season. Covey said few players are going to “ramp it up too much this fall until you’re certain” a season will be played soon.
That’s not to say he or his teammates will take it easy over the fall — in fact, it’s the opposite. Regardless of whether a season is played in winter/spring, each player will continue to look for an edge in the sport, an opportunity to get better and gain more experience. And for a team that features a now young core, extra time is always better than a rushed start to an already chaotic landscape.
But if a winter/spring season is on the table, Covey said he and his teammates are all in, especially given that the NCAA has ruled fall athletes will be given an extra year of eligibility, regardless of if they play football for the 2020 season — in fall, winter or spring.
“If that really is the case, then guys would be content with an eight-game season in the spring because it has no long-term effect on their eligibility,” Covey said. “I think that would be possible to play an eight-game season in the spring and then play a full season in the fall.
“I think that no matter what happened, this was almost inevitable, at least in the Pac-12 — I can't speak for the rest of the country,” Covey added. “I do think that a spring season is plausible still, and I believe that the majority of my teammates would hope for that. But I just think that no matter what we did, as players or coaches, this was kind of out of our control.”
Until a season starts, Covey has at least the Jazz to celebrate. And for the immediate future, his NBA team’s outlook is bright with a budding superstar in guard Donovan Mitchell. If a season does eventually start for the Utes, there’s a high probability Mitchell will watch Covey light up the field with his shiftiness and speed in person.
