San Diego State reportedly dealing with mumps outbreak ahead of Pac-12 opener

The San Diego State Aztecs are being hobbled by more than just some knee and ankle injuries.

The team has been dealing with several cases of mumps, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The newspaper first reported last week that the Aztecs were dealing with a handful of cases of mumps ahead of an ugly 41-16 loss at Toledo that dropped the Aztecs to 1-3 going into their historic Pac-12 opener Saturday night against Texas State at Snapdragon Stadium.

The newspaper reported that, according to sources it didn’t identify, four more football players have tested positive. The paper reported that the school’s campus health department confirmed on Sept. 18 that there were three confirmed cases and two probable cases of the contagious virus that were “connected and within” an unidentified sports team.

Coach Sean Lewis was asked about the “mumps situation” during his weekly news conference.

“There’s players that are up, there’s players that are down, for a lot of different reasons,” Lewis said. “Due to FERPA, due to HIPAA and respecting the privacy of our student-athletes, I’m not going to say anything further about the matter.”

FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

One star player who apparently wasn’t even on the sidelines at Toledo was senior Bert Emanuel Jr., last year’s backup quarterback who moved to wide receiver in the offseason.

Asked about Emanuel, Lewis said: “Again, there are a lot of different things that are going on, both football related and non-football related. Due to FERPA and HIPAA, I’m not going to comment any further on that.”

The timing of the mumps outbreak couldn’t be worse.

The Aztecs have lost three straight games and can’t afford to get off to a slow start.

The Pac-12 will release its first availability report of the season on Wednesday night.

SDSU already dealing with major injury concerns

The Aztecs are already expected to be without star running back Lucky Sutton, a 1,000-yard rusher last year, and Javion “Chop” Kinnard, who had 151 yards of total offense in a home loss to James Madison two weeks ago.

They were injured in the first half of Saturday’s loss to Toledo. Kinnard appeared to injure his left knee and Sutton appeared to aggravate the high ankle sprain that kept him out of the JMU game.

Lewis said only that the two backs were to have more imaging done.

“Right now, I would say that they are questionable to be able to play this week,” the coach said.

The running back room had been one of the Aztecs’ strengths coming into the season and now it’s woefully thin.

The only other running backs on the roster are redshirt freshman Jordin Thomas and freshman Josiah Lucas.

Senior running back Christian Washington left the team last week.

Up next

Kickoff for the Texas State-SDSU game is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The schools have never met before.

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