And now we know a little bit more of the rest of the story when it comes to Rutgers football. And Exhibit A as to why it will be nearly impossible to have any semblance of even a truncated college football season.
Over the weekend, RU announced that it was quarantining the entire Scarlet Knights football team after six additional players tested positive for COVID-19. All told, the team acknowledged that 10 players had tested positive.
RU became the second Big Ten program to quarantine the entire squad, joining Michigan State.
Wednesday, nj.com, citing two people with knowledge of the situation, reported that "[a]thletes from various Rutgers sports programs, including the football team, gathered for a recent on-campus party.” That party has been connected to the outbreak on the Rutgers football team.
From the report:But New Jersey’s top health official appeared to acknowledge the Rutgers football team’s outbreak stemmed from a gathering of some kind.
Judith Persichilli, the state health commissioner, said during Gov. Phil Murphy’s news briefing in Trenton there have been “several circumstances where indoor and outdoor gatherings in our state have led to community clusters of COVID-19′' and listed Rutgers among a series of other known parties in the state, including graduation parties in Westfield and Cape May County, a Father’s Day celebration in Essex County and parties in Long Beach Island and Middletown.
“There’s been an outbreak of Rutgers football players, with 15 of them currently testing positive,’' she said while grouping together the list of indoor and outdoor gatherings. “These examples that we shared today account for 125 new cases of COVID-19 in our state. Every single one of those cases has the potential to infect other people. Their grandparents, parents, siblings, friends, love ones, and if any of one of them have underlying conditions … the result could be fatal.Thus far, the Rutgers football program has not commented on the report.