FAU’s season opener against Georgia Southern, which was scheduled to be on ESPN on Saturday, has been postponed in the wake of a COVID-19 outbreak this week that has seen 18 members of the Owls’ football program testing positive.
The program released a statement Friday saying: “Following results of Thursday’s COVID-19 testing, it was determined the Owls would be unable to play Saturday. The two schools are working to find a date to play later this season.”
FAU coach Willie Taggart told reporters Wednesday that “like 11” members of the program tested positive for COVID-19 at the beginning of the week, which led to the Owls’ cancellation of Tuesday’s practice.
Taggart didn’t originally say whether all the positive tests were players, but an FAU spokesperson clarified to the Sun Sentinel that it was 10 members of the football program who tested positive — nine student-athletes and one student-staff member of the program.
After another round of testing on Tuesday — which didn’t produce any additional positive test results according to the spokesperson — FAU returned to practice Wednesday morning and Taggart told reporters he expected the Owls to play against Georgia Southern on Saturday as scheduled.
“[It] all depends,” Taggart said at the time, “on if we have enough guys to play at certain positions.”
FAU was tested again Thursday and received more positive tests Friday, with the spokesperson saying four staff members, three student-athletes and one more student-staff member of the program tested positive — bringing the program to 18 positive tests in the week.
Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel reported that the Owls had an entire position group that wouldn’t have been available against Georgia Southern.
Conference USA requires that football student-athletes, support and game-day operations staff get tested for COVID-19 three times a week.
The spokesperson didn’t know how many student-athletes or members of the program would’ve had to quarantine as of Friday evening. Test results from Thursday were still being received as of Friday evening and the university’s student health services hadn’t finished the contact tracing, according to the spokesperson.
Several members of the program expressed their disappointment in not playing this weekend on social media, with multiple players tweeting angry or sad emojis.
“Torn up in a big way,” FAU defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt tweeted Friday morning. “Many emotions all over the place. Must do what is right…always. Go Owls!”
Brian White, FAU’s vice president and director of athletics, tweeted: “Heartbroken for our student-athletes over the postponement of [Saturday’s] game. This pandemic creates challenges for all of us daily. We’ll continue to work diligently toward a safe way for our student-athletes to be able to participate in the sport they love.”
It isn’t clear when FAU and Georgia Southern would be able to reschedule their matchup. The Owls’ first bye weekend of the season is Oct. 17, but the Eagles play Appalachian State on Oct. 14.
FAU has another opening in the season on Nov. 21, which is when it originally would’ve played Old Dominion before the Monarchs canceled their fall sports season, but Georgia Southern has a game scheduled against Army that weekend.
Josh Aubrey of the Statesboro Herald reported that the FAU-Georgia Southern game will be “tentatively rescheduled for Dec 5th,” at Paulson Stadium in Statesboro, Ga. — which is the same weekend of the C-USA championship game. Therefore, if the Owls don’t make the title game, they would be available to make up the game that weekend.
FAU’s game wasn’t the only one postponed at the last minute. On Friday, Baylor called off its opener against Houston set for Saturday. Baylor said it was unable to meet COVID-19 roster thresholds set by the Big 12 Conference. The school did not provide specifics on the players or positions affected by the coronavirus or the number of players who were quarantined due to contact tracing. However, on Monday, it said it had six active cases across its athletic programs and that 23 total cases were being monitored.
Houston was originally scheduled to play Friday night against Memphis, but the American Athletic Conference postponed that game last weekend after the Tigers had numerous players test positive. In a scramble, the game against Baylor was scheduled.
Houston has now had four games postponed or canceled,
FAU already had its first two games of the season — its original season opener at Minnesota scheduled for Sept. 3 and its original home opener versus Stony Brook on Sept. 12— canceled by COVID-19 schedule changes at other schools.
For now, the Owls will have to wait at least one more week to start their season and the Taggart era in their Sept. 26 home opener against USF.
Information from the Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
