ROYAL CITY — Coming off the undefeated season and 1A state championship, the Royal Knights football program awaits a chance to return to the field and prepare for another run.

Royal head football coach Wiley Allred said he’s had some communication with players, sending out workouts through hudl.com, among other things. Allred said he’s mostly been waiting on the word from people above him on how they can proceed moving forward.

“I’m communicating with some of them, and most are working out on their own and doing things that way,” Allred said. “But nothing organized. It’s all different than it’s been, for sure.”

Allred said there are meetings Monday and Tuesday to discuss things, and he hopes to hear something soon. The first chance they have, Allred said, he wants to try and at least get everyone back together outside at the school grounds for organized workouts.

The annual overnight football camp at Eastern Washington University the Knights typically attend has been canceled this summer as well, Allred said.

“They hope to do some day camps, but I think they’re waiting to see if that’s a possibility or not,” Allred said. “Right now, we’re just in wait-and-see mode, and everything that’s been set up, at least the overnight camps, have been canceled. We’re just looking forward to getting back out and doing something with them.”

Bringing back a large chunk from last year’s undefeated team will hopefully help make up for missing some of this time, Allred said, in familiarity and leadership.

“Hopefully, that helps us when we do get started because it’s a late start,” he said. “And that’s assuming we get started. We’re still optimistic, but we don’t know.”

Allred said he believes the players missing out the most right now are those younger players just coming into the program, trying to learn the system.

“We spend a lot of time in the spring, and in camp, trying to communicate what the team is all about and how important that is,” Allred said. “We strive really hard to include all the young freshmen and such, so we’ll be working really hard, if we get the go-ahead, to begin with everyone that wants to turn out.”

As a coach, Allred said, he’s never experienced anything “remotely close” to the situation we’re currently in with COVID-19. He said it’s tough for a lot reasons, not the least of which are the spring senior athletes who’s season was stripped away.

“Now we’re starting to see the effects as well in the budget cuts, like one school getting all sports for a whole year canceled,” Allred said. “And then also I think there’s repercussions for kids transferring. I hope they figure out the state of Washington because kids will probably transfer out. They’re gonna play, and if they don’t think sports are important, I think they’ll find out by how many kids leave if they do that. It’d be devastating.”

Allred said he’s hopeful that a season can still happen this fall and firmly believes it can be done safely.

“I’ll follow whatever guidelines they set forth, definitely want the safety of the kids and the adults that are in that situation,” Allred said. “But I’m not the health expert. But I can assure you I certainly hope it can be done.”