The Gophers football program has already dealt with impacts from COVID-19 this season, but the team might have its most significant challenge ahead of them tonight.
According to Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports, Minnesota will be without 20 players against Purdue tonight due to either injury or COVID-19.
Source: Minnesota football will be without 20 players tonight against Purdue, as it continues to deal with COVID-19 and injuries. They will also be without multiple staff members, including OL coach Brian Callahan.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) November 20, 2020
The University announced offensive line coach Brian Callahan and two other staff members also tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this week and will not be at the game. The announcement did not name the other staff members who tested positive.
The players that are out because of COVID-19 are currently unknown. However, because tonight’s game against Purdue is still to be played, the Gophers are not in what is considered to be the Big Ten’s red area. This means a team’s test positivity rate is greater than 5% and the population’s positivity rate is greater than 7.5%.
This is not the first time Minnesota has had to attempt to overcome COVID-19 issues. Besides players opting out of playing this season, the Gophers were immediately faced with a problem when kicker Michael Lantz and punter Mark Crawford were unable to participate in the season opening game against Michigan.
Following the game against Maryland, defensive coordinator Joe Rossi tested positive and was not able to coach the team against Illinois.
youmayberight
Nov 25, 2020 at 3:30 pm
The roster shows 115 players, If fewer than 5% tested positive, that would mean that fewer than 6 players tested positive. Were the rest of the 20 who were sidelined, for reasons other than injury, players who came into contact with those 5 or fewer players?