How Ohio State football went from its first coronavirus cases to pausing operations in 48 hours

Ohio State University football team opens their season against Nebraska

Ohio State football had experienced "essentially no cases" of COVID-19 before Wednesday night. Within 48 hours, the Buckeyes had to shut down operations.David Petkiewicz, cleveland.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio — We repeated it so much it became one of the major cliches of the college football season.

Ohio State football’s biggest opponent this season would be the coronavirus itself. Until Wednesday night, the No. 3 Buckeyes were both undefeated on the field and mostly unaffected by COVID-19.

Head team physician Dr. James Borchers said Saturday that Ohio State had “essentially zero cases” of COVID-19 prior to this week. Yet by Friday night, athletic department personnel said it was clear they could not both play Saturday’s game at Illinois and mitigate further spread within the program.

Ohio State coach Ryan Day, the program’s only publicly known positive case, described only one symptom Saturday — “an extremely heavy heart.” Since the start of the season he had candidly described the daily dread of waiting for the next batch of test results. Would one infected player slip through the testing barriers into the Woody Hayes Athletic Complex, and how quickly would one case become one major problem?

“The sacrifices being made by so many, and the anxiety over months and months and months of every day getting test results back to make sure that the entire program is safe, to experience it this week, Thanksgiving week — I can’t sit here and tell you it’s anything other than really, really hard,” Day said.

According to Day, once the first positive tests came in on Wednesday, Ohio State reacted accordingly.

All meetings were held virtually. Players did not wear helmets and had to wear face masks or gaiters at all times during walk-throughs. Rather than “body on body,” Day said the team was essentially practicing against trash cans.

“We actually didn’t practice physically,” Day said. “It was a practice on paper.”

Ohio State hoped by isolating those who tested positive, and those it could identify through contact tracing, it could move forward with Saturday’s game.

Head team physician Dr. Jim Borchers co-chaired the Big Ten medical subcommittee that helped establish the return-to-play protocols when the fall season was reinstated. He said the testing thresholds — 5 percent test positivity, and 7.5 percent for a seven-day rolling average of the entire program “population” — were meant as guideposts for helping programs make decisions.

Ohio State players, and all Big Ten players, have been taking daily rapid antigen tests since Sept. 30 at the latest. Day reiterated Saturday that he was proud of how the athletic department has handled the pandemic. According to program officials, the past week began as each of the previous two months had — clean tests and normal operations.

Until ...

“We didn’t have really any concerns until Wednesday,” Borchers said. “As we started to see a couple things that we had not seen before, certainly that was not enough to make us pause on Wednesday, but as coach Day mentioned, to discuss putting some adjustments in place to make certain we were remaining vigilant about the potential for seeing any increase in our positivity rate.

Buckeyes canceled Illinois game without crossing Big Ten thresholds; hopes to play at Michigan State

“But it really wasn’t until ... enhanced testing (Friday) that we really got to a point where it became very clear that we needed to pause. And so unfortunately, this wasn’t a decision we could make early in the week. This was really not a decision, from my standpoint, that could be made until (Friday).”

Ohio State altered its travel plans to depart for Champaign on Saturday morning as it continued to test. Athletic director Gene Smith said additional tests that came back Friday night created doubt that OSU could travel in a healthy way by plane, or ensure a “clean field” for itself and the Illini.

By shutting down Friday, Ohio State hopes it gave itself a chance to play at Michigan State on Saturday. The seven-day rolling average is the important number. As more individuals test negative, the test positivity rate drops.

Day planned to hold staff and team meetings virtually on Saturday afternoon. He will not be able to rejoin the team until one week from Monday at the earliest. That would be the beginning of preparation for The Game against Michigan at Ohio Stadium on Dec. 12.

Smith closed the call by thanking Day for how he has handled the situation, saying he is “killing it” under exceptionally difficult circumstances.

“I have no clue what this afternoon or tomorrow will bring or next week,” Smith said. “But I do know one thing — we have a great leader in him. We have great leader and the rest of our coaches. We have great kids, and our objective every day is to help give them the opportunity to do what they want to do, and that’s to play the game they love.

“It’d be easy to walk away and say no, we’re done. Shut it all down. It’s history. But we fight every day for them.”

Borchers said, as of Saturday morning, the infected players are convalescing at home. None have required “significant medical treatment.”

Day attempted to grasp for lessons to be learned from this experience. In reality, the worry about the effects of the virus on the Buckeyes’ season have only grown — and they have never been more vivid.

“Nothing about this is good, but I guess it’s just going to make us tougher,” Day said. “It’s going to make us stronger. It’s going to make our young men better husbands, better fathers. I really believe that going through all this is gonna make us all stronger.

“But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. It doesn’t mean it’s been any fun at all.”

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Ohio State Buckeyes Adult Face Covering

Fanatics has released Ohio State Buckeyes Adult Face Coverings. This 3-pack of adult masks, retails for $29.99.


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