Gators, fortunately, only dealing with minor COVID symptoms

As a football coach, Dan Mullen likes his routine. He wakes up before the sun most days to get in a couple of miles running on the open road or around campus. Then a shower change and he starts his workday. Whether that’s recruiting, meetings, film, practice, there’s always a routine and a schedule.

Then March came and threw the entire world, including Mullen’s routine, into wack.

Mullen has readily admitted that he’s a workaholic and when Florida was forced to shut down at the start of the pandemic he didn’t know what to do.

When the SEC decided to have a season it brought some semblance of normalcy back to Mullen and the football program. The Gators’ COVID-19 testing procedure was meticulous. Florida had just 10 positive COVID-19 tests from the time players reported back to campus for mandatory workouts until October, a span of 11 weeks.

Then, in the blink of an eye everything changed.

Florida has traced back its recent outbreak of more than two dozen positive cases to its trip to College Station on October 9. A few players felt flu-like symptoms but, per SEC guidelines, were administered tests on Thursday, October 8. Those players tested negative, whether the virus wasn’t developed enough to register a positive or the test showed a false negative we won’t know, but they traveled, while infected and the virus did its thing.

“I think you got the origins of, ‘Hey, we think these one or two guys might have been positive getting on the plane or might have had it getting on the plane.’ I don’t know if they were positive because they had just tested negative the day before,” Mullen said. “But it kind of started with a little bit of a spread there and you go into, ‘OK, the one guy had a roommate on the road, so it spread to that roommate and then you had a pregame meal where these people sat at a table where that spread and then you had a plane ride where that spread and someone’s locker was next to somebody.”

The Gators have had two games rescheduled already because of the outbreak but, at the core of it all are the health and wellness of the players, coaches, and staff that have the virus. Mullen reported positively on the health of the players.

“I think the majority of our guys have very minor symptoms, and then what we did is kind of following a lot of the NFL model and, I mean, out of the abundance of caution we’ve used this whole time, the program, to completely close the program to get back to zero positive tests. So we’re going to be closed until Monday. We’re going to, even the coaches, everybody’s working remotely until next Monday and then we’ll open back up hopefully at that point.”

Additionally, Mullen tested positive and has had to quarantine at his home. Fortunately, his wife, Megan, and their children Canon and Breelyn have tested negative for the virus multiple times since Dan has been quarantined at the family home.

“I’m away from the kids and the family. I’ve isolated from them, fortunately, I guess. I get my bedroom. I have an office off of my bedroom, so I’ve kind of been in there the whole time. My wife’s had to move rooms, unfortunately for her,” Mullen said. “But they’ve had multiple negative tests so far, thank goodness. I’ve basically just kind of isolated on my side of the house, going from my office to the bedroom.”

If there is a silver lining in all of this mess it’s that, fortunately for everyone involved, the reported symptoms seem to be mild. Football will come and go, but hearing that the people that make up the program aren’t dealing with significant symptoms is good news.

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC