We’re in the midst of the second week of the new eight-week summer workout period in college football. It was a long time coming and it really didn’t make much sense for basketball to have a similar setup the past few years and for football to only want the same. But for some reason, basketball had the window to work with players during the summer months and football coaches couldn’t have any interaction with or control over players during June and July … even though they were allowed to do it in the winter before spring practice.

Forget the football ramifications that come with this new system, as hard as that may be because they are so sizable and significant. Consider the welfare of the student in student-athlete and what that means to the football aspect. Summer classes are a big, big deal for college football players now, and those voluntary workouts were voluntary in name only and as useful as the player made them.

Coaches now have oversight in the summer and can use punitive measures to make sure a player is going to class or study hall or wasn’t taking the workouts seriously. Before? There was nothing a coach could do except let bad habits linger and hope an enforcer emerged from inside the huddle.

So the Mountaineers are getting together for five days a week for eight total hours, which is what the NCAA allows. WVU, though, won’t be doing exactly what is permissible. Only six of the eight weeks will be used because the NCAA has written another prescription to make football programs right. There’s a two-week dead period in the recruiting cycle during the eight summer weeks. “They put it in there,” West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said, “so coaches would go on vacation.”

We’ve spent considerable space here the past two months commenting on how the NCAA suddenly seems interested in the welfare of the student-athlete both during and after a playing career. That dead period is a similar tip of the cap to the well-being of coaches, and Holgorsen believes the Mountaineers will be better because of it.

“What was happening was all these high school kids would tour everywhere in the summer and a coach would get a call on July 3 or July 5 saying, ‘I’m popping into town. I need someone to show me around,’” Holgorsen said. “We had no choice but to show them around and coaches weren’t getting any downtime, weren’t getting a vacation.”

The dead period was intended to lift that burden. The eight weeks in the summer return that weight to the conscience of all college coaches.

There are nine weeks between the start of the new eight-week window and the start of preseason camp at your favorite school. If a head coach uses all eight, he leaves just one week for leisure.

“We kicked it around as a staff: ‘OK, recruiting is dead those two weeks, but being here with the kids is kind of important. Do we need to be here the four weeks in July, too?’” Holgorsen said. “In the end, what we didn’t want was for Aug. 1 to roll around and the coaches didn’t have any vacation time and we’ve all been around the players too much and everyone is sick of each other.”