Florida Atlantic game postponed due to COVID-19
USF football was scheduled to travel to Boca Raton and take on Florida Atlantic (FAU) on Saturday, but the game was postponed Wednesday evening due to “issues involving the novel coronavirus.”
The decision came as a joint agreement from both USF and FAU.
“With the health and safety of our student-athletes and staff as well as mitigating the spread of the virus as our primary concern, given the outbreak among team members of our most recent opponent and subsequent contact tracing within our team, postponement of this Saturday’s game at FAU is the right thing to do,” USF Vice President of Athletics Michael Kelly said in a statement. “We were aware going into this season and have seen across the country that dealing with COVID-19 and taking the necessary precautions to mitigate its spread will present ongoing challenges. We are prepared to deal with those challenges and move forward in a safe manner.”
The AAC and Conference USA are reviewing potential dates to reschedule the game, and Kelly said that on-field activities will resume once medical professionals deem it safe.
“We will resume on-field team activities once our medical professionals are comfortable with us doing so and will work in good faith with FAU to identify a future date to reschedule the game,” Kelly said.
The news follows USF football’s decision to postpone all on-field activities after last week’s opponent, Notre Dame, experienced an outbreak following Saturday’s game.
The decision was made after reviewing game video for contact tracing.
The team was tested twice last Friday, before Saturday’s game at Notre Dame and again on Monday. All tests came back negative.
Notre Dame postponed its game against Wake Forest scheduled for this weekend after seven Fighting Irish players tested positive and 13 were put in isolation. As of Tuesday, Notre Dame has 408 confirmed cases among the campus community.
“With a focus on the health and safety of our student-athletes and staff, we feel it is prudent to pause on-field activity until we have the results of further testing,” USF Athletics said in a statement.
This story has been updated to reflect the postponement of the FAU game originally scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 26.