Gators AD Stricklin Addresses LSU Postponement, 21 COVID-19 Cases
The Florida Gators will not suit up against the LSU Tigers this week, Oct. 17, and as of right now the game has been tentatively postponed until Dec. 12, according to Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin who addressed the media earlier today.
During his 30-minute-long press conference, Stricklin addressed all of the issues surrounding the 21-player COVID-19 outbreak the Florida football team has had over the past several days of testing. According to Stricklin, 18 scholarship athletes on the football team have tested positive with three as walk-on athletes testing positive as well.
The program does a round of testing on Sunday morning, according to Stricklin, and it was at that point on Monday morning when the program was informed that there were a number of players who called Sunday night to report symptoms, "headache, fatigue, scratchy throat, that kind of thing."
Since Sunday, the team has tested every day and opted to call off the Monday morning team meeting, however, the damage was already done.
Due to a significant number of COVID cases, we are unfortunately announcing a postponement of the Florida/LSU game that was scheduled for Saturday, and have worked with Scott Woodward the athletic director of LSU along with the SEC office, Charlie Hussey, Mark Womack and, of course, Mr. Sankey to tentatively have rescheduled again for December 12," said Stricklin, "which as you know was a date put in the late schedule for circumstances like this because we anticipated there might be issues as we went through the season.
Per the current SEC regulations, Florida, and all SEC programs must have at least 53 scholarship players available any given week to suit up. This includes seven (7) offensive linemen (which includes one center), one (1) quarterback and four (4) defensive linemen.
While Florida's numbers from the COVID-positive athletes would make the cut, Stricklin indicated that when those quarantined through contact tracing and a handful of players already on the non-COVID injury list, are added, it would bring Florida to less than 50 athletes ready to suit up.
"Certainly understand the importance of you know, trying to have a team prepared, available if possible during this, this, this odd season that we're all in. Certainly, that was our intention, but we've, we've reached a point where we don't think it's appropriate that we try to play the game this weekend."
None of the athletes, coaches, or personnel that are currently COVID-positive, according to Stricklin, are experiencing more than either asymptomatic or mild symptoms. Since the program returned to training in July to Oct. 1, the program had just 10 positive test results.
As of right now, the origin of the outbreak is unknown, says the Florida AD, however, there is a "suspicion" that the trip to College Station was likely the root of everything.
"There’s a sense of frustration but we understand this virus can sneak up on you and you can have it spread in an eyelash, really, the bat of an eyelash. That’s what we’re seeing right now," he says.
"Really have no obvious answers about the origin of the spread, but there’s suspicion that the trip this past weekend to College Station probably was at the root of it. Again, a lot of this is anecdotal but from talking to our sports health staff, a couple of our athletes who have tested positive since coming back from that trip subsequently reported that late last week they had what they thought were allergy type symptoms."
Some players who experienced "allergy type" symptoms did not immediately report them as COVID-like symptoms which could offer some insight into how the spread occurred in the first place. While the program does have protocols set in place, there isn't anything in place if an athlete simply doesn't tell anyone they're sick or feeling sick.
"One of them was congested, one of them had a headache and they did not report those symptoms as we have an expectation they do so because they didn’t think it was anything other than seasonal type cold that we experience through allergies or whatever."
As of today, the Florida football program will be paused indefinitely, and there will continue to be regular testing for those not currently in quarantine.
