The Florida Gators are pausing all football operations Tuesday after a recent spike in Covid cases this week.
“The University of Florida football team has experienced an increase in positive COVID tests among players this week. Out of an abundance of caution, team activities are paused as of Tuesday afternoon,” Scott Stricklin said in a statement on the team website.
“Head Coach Dan Mullen has been in communication with football players and their parents, and I have had conversations with the Southeastern Conference office, last week’s opponent Texas A&M, and this week’s opponent LSU.”
“These circumstances will be re-evaluated by UF Health and the athletic department’s sports medicine staff Wednesday.”
Florida released new COVID-19 testing data on Tuesday and revealed that five new football players had tested positive. Florida had just one positive test in the month of October prior to this week on the football team. Florida had just six positive cases on the football team when they released numbers on September 15 and the University has generally missed big swaths of positive cases throughout the offseason and into fall.
“I think if you look at what we’ve been able to do, the safety precautions we have that our players have followed, our coaches follow, our staff follows, you know, I think we’re a model of safety of what we’ve been doing during this time period,” Dan Mullen said on a Zoom call Monday afternoon. “So, I’m really proud of how we’ve handled everything and how safe we’ve been with everything we’re doing and all the precautions we’ve had in place during this time.”
Missouri and Vanderbilt had the first SEC game officially postponed this season. Vanderbilt fell below the SEC-mandated 53 scholarship player limit to play and the game has been moved to December 12.
There have been 28 FBS games canceled or postponed this year for COVID-19 related reasons.
As of right now, Florida is scheduled to play LSU at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium Saturday, October 17 at 4:00 pm.