Cheshire — Glenn Lungarini was wrapping up Thursday morning's CIAC press conference when he used a word he had already said several times to summarize the amended fall sports plan.

"'Fluid' could be the title of the document," said Lungarini, the CIAC's executive director.

Lungarini talked about the amended fall plans for almost an hour with media members who followed six-foot social distancing guidelines throughout in a ground-floor room at the organization's headquarters. The plan was released Wednesday night and posted at ciacsports.com.

"Today, we are a day closer to starting practice and conditioning," Lungarini said. "And we are no closer to playing games in any sport.

"We have to remain fluid. We have to remain vigilant and look at these (COVID-19) numbers on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis."

All fall sports will begin conditioning on Saturday in groups no larger than 10 through Sept. 20. Most schools will have been opened for approximately two weeks by then, and the CIAC wants to view two weeks of COVID-19 data to determine if fall sports can proceed as planned.

"We believe our kids, our athletes, and our schools deserve the value of time and deserve the opportunity to at least begin under low risk activities and then assess as we move forward," Lungarini said about the plan. "We think it's safe. We think it's logical. We think it gives a progression. We think it addresses the social-emotional mental health needs of our kids as well as their desire to compete and gives direct information to our superintendents and our board that they need to proceed and make the decision that's best for them."

Full practices would start on Sept. 21 if the average of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 state residents — less than 10 new cases per day over a seven-day average — meets the CIAC's metric for low risk. The CIAC is relying on data from the State Department of Education.

If the COVID metrics remain low, then all contests would start on Oct. 1, including football and volleyball, the two sports that Connecticut's Department of Public Health recommended be moved to the spring because of the risks of both sports.

The National Federation of High Schools considers volleyball a "moderate risk" because it is played indoors, and football "high risk" because it is full contact.

"We are listening to the recommendations that are coming from the Department of Health," Lungarini said. "We are aligning, in many ways, with the recommendations from the Department of Health. We still have some questions and we still have some areas that we feel need to be explored as we go forward."

The CIAC had finalized its fall plans on July 30 and its Board of Control voted on Aug. 12 to stay the course.

The DPH sent the CIAC a letter of its recommendations for fall sports on Aug. 12 urging them to postpone football and volleyball. The CIAC halted all activities two days later to both review the DPH's recommendations and meet with the agency.

The CIAC allowed conditioning to resume Monday. Football was the only sport at that time that was conditioning. All other fall sports had been originally scheduled to begin conditioning on Thursday.

"The fall plan that we released on July 30, on July 24, we presented that plan for review to the Connecticut Rules Committee," Lungarini said. "There were members of the DPH that sat on that committee. We did reach out to the DPH specific to the fall sport plan as early as July 10. … We set up a meeting for July 28. We spoke with (an) individual from DPH as well as an infectious disease MD, and at that time was the first time we specifically asked the question, 'what is your position on high school football?'

"At that time, the metrics in Connecticut and what was taking place would not prohibit high-risk sports. … We've been speaking with them along the way. Again, opinions change and things change and they change for good reason and good rational."

n.griffen@theday.com