Rutgers is the latest to give pause when it comes to Big Ten football.
Wednesday, Michigan State announced it was suspending football workouts after one staffer tested positive for COVID-19. Two days later, MSU announced that a second staffer and a player have tested positive as well. As a result, the program has decided to quartine or isolate the entire football team for a period of 14 days.
Prior to today, and since Rutgers returned for on-campus workouts June 15, the football program had reported four positive tests for COVID-19. Late Saturday afternoon, however, the school said in a press release, that “we learned of six additional positive COVID-19 results in our latest weekly testing cycle.”
“As a result, we have paused all in-person team activities, quarantined our entire program and will work diligently with Rutgers medical experts, and state and local officials to determine next steps,” the release ended.
Exactly how long the quarantine will last wasn’t detailed by the school.
The two B1G schools, though, are far from the only ones impacted by the virus.
Two weeks ago, Indiana hit the pause button. In the span of a week prior to that, Ohio State , Maryland and North Carolina confirmed they were putting a temporary halt to voluntary workouts because of the results of recent COVID-19 testing among its student-athletes. July 3, Kansas became yet another FBS program to pause voluntary workouts after 12 players tested positive for COVID-19. Earlier in that same week, Arizona announced that it was pausing its phased return of student-athletes to campus. Prior to that, eight individuals connected to the Boise State football program tested positive, forcing the school to temporarily scuttle workouts. June 20, K-State announced that it is pausing all voluntary workouts as well. The reason? “[A] total of 14 student-athletes have tested positive for active COVID-19 following PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing of more than 130 student-athletes.” The weekend before that, Houston decided to put a halt to voluntary on-campus workouts after six symptomatic UH student-athletes tested positive for COVID-19.
All told, more than a dozen FBS schools have hit the coronavirus-related pause button.
Other programs had seen a high number of players test positive but continued workouts. Among those are Clemson (37 players tested positive), LSU (30 players quarantined), Texas (13 confirmed positives for football players) and Texas Tech (23 positives for players/staffers).
Oklahoma, meanwhile, is down to zero active cases.