Gators will be shorthanded against Missouri on Halloween

The Florida Gators’ battle with COVID-19 isn’t over yet.

Florida went to College Station on October 9 with one positive football player but in the span of one week that number would balloon to 31 positive players as of Tuesday, October 20, and 32 a day later. The Gators’ have had games against LSU and Missouri postponed because of the outbreak, which even afflicted head coach Dan Mullen. On the SEC teleconference call, Wednesday afternoon Mullen shed some light on how Florida thinks the virus hit the team so hard in such a relatively short amount of time.

“I think it definitely happened with the trip. I don’t think it one specific aspect of the trip,” Mullen explained. “Obviously, I think it started on the plane ride there and then other aspects. 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. 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. You know, when you go on the road, the locker rooms are much smaller.”

Essentially, Mullen laid out how fragile a season can be in the COVID era. Florida went from having just 10 positive football players in the 11 previous weeks to a complete outbreak that has altered the season entirely.

When the Gators returned from College Station several players had begun to report flu-like symptoms and when the test results from Sunday came back, Florida had five new positives. That caused the team to add an additional test on Monday and the spread was confirmed. It was that Tuesday and Wednesday that Florida decided to shut down the program for two weeks.

“We made the decision to close the program to next Monday right when we shut the program down last Tuesday. We knew starting last Tuesday or Wednesday,” Mullen said. “We didn’t practice Tuesday as we were gathering the information on Wednesday morning, the last time we had got together was Monday, and we decided to shut everything down for 14 days going back to that Monday.”

So now, even with the Gators getting out of quarantine, isolation, and back on to the field, they won’t be back together as a group until Monday. And they won’t be at full capacity or at full strength, not just from a standpoint that guys haven’t done any football activity, or lifted weights, and some are battling a virus that will affect their respiratory system, but they’ll be getting ready for a game just five days away. Mullen was asked if there was a potential that the Missouri game would be in question.

“I haven’t really thought of that, because our expectations is to kind of be back on Monday at this point,” Mullen said when asked if there was a possibility that the game against Missouri on Halloween wouldn’t happen. “But, I mean, we’ll figure it out. We’ll find a way. I don’t know, it’s something we’d have to discuss with the league at that point, your ability to get guys practicing and get them in shape. I think now … hopefully we’re back Monday at this point. Moving forward, we won’t be at full capacity as a team, but we feel comfortable our numbers will be at a point where we can play the game.”

The call wasn’t all doom and gloom. Mullen did report that, thankfully, most of the players and staff that tested positive are experiencing very mild symptoms and that his wife and their two children have tested negative multiple times since Mullen’s positive test last week.

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