There have been plenty of concerning COVID-19 test reports throughout the NCAA football world, but the numbers for the Clemson Tigers (last year’s national runners-up) appear particularly worrying. Last Friday, the university announced that 23 football players had tested positive for COVID-19; this week, that total is up to 37 players, around a third of the preseason roster size limit of 105. Here’s more from Andrea Adelson of ESPN:
Clemson announced Friday that 14 football players tested positive for the coronavirus over the past week, bringing the total number of cases on the team over the past month to 37 — roughly one-third of the roster.
Including the football players, Clemson athletics reported 19 total cases this week. Since beginning testing on June 1, Clemson has conducted 430 tests, with a total of 47 positive results.
Twenty-eight people who previously tested positive, including 23 football players, have completed a 10-day isolation period. The school said about half of those people had symptoms, though none of the positive tests had led to hospitalizations as of Friday.
Of course, none of that is necessarily going to change reopening plans from Clemson, the ACC, or the NCAA. There’s a lot of money riding on this season, especially when it comes to television revenues. And we’ve seen in other sports that many executives in charge are very determined to push on with their season despite COVID-19 concerns, and we’ve seen that with recent comments from NCAA figures as well. So this certainly doesn’t mean that the Tigers’ season is set to change at the moment. But it’s definitely notable to see these kinds of numbers within one team.
[ESPN]
