Yahoo Sports Notre Dame's game at Wake Forest postponed due to positive COVID-19 tests
Notre Dame and Wake Forest won’t play each other on Saturday.
Notre Dame announced the postponement Tuesday because seven players on the team had tested positive for coronavirus and others needed to quarantine as part of the school’s contact tracing program.
“In consultation with the St. Joseph County Department of Health, the Notre Dame Football program has decided to pause all football-related activities until further testing is completed,” the team said in a statement. “Combined with last week’s testing results, a total of 13 players are currently in isolation, with 10 in quarantine.”
Per Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel on Wednesday, the game will be made up on Dec. 12. Both Wake Forest and Notre Dame had off weeks on Oct. 3 but that date might have been too soon to make up the game given Notre Dame’s recent positive tests.
Source: Wake Forest’s game with Campbell has been moved to Oct. 2 from Oct. 9. Expect the Notre Dame game postponed from this weekend to be moved to Dec. 12, the next open date the teams share. Virginia and Virginia Tech has already moved to Dec. 12.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) September 23, 2020
With two ACC games now on Dec. 12, the conference’s title game looks like it could be moved to Dec. 19. Notre Dame is considered a favorite to be one of the two teams in the title game.
Saturday’s game between the Fighting Irish and Demon Deacons is the first to be postponed this week and the 18th game overall to be postponed in the 2020 season because of positive coronavirus tests.
Last weekend had seven games postponed including a game between Houston and Baylor. That game was scheduled on Monday and postponed on Friday after Baylor said positive tests and contact tracing had put a position group below the required minimums to play a game.
That game had initially been scheduled after Baylor’s game against Louisiana Tech in Week 2 was canceled and Houston’s game against Memphis had been postponed. The Tigers also previously postponed a scheduled Friday game against Texas-San Antonio.
“With student-athlete health and safety our primary focus, we will continue to follow our prevention protocols and ongoing testing procedures,” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said in a statement. “We managed an increase in positivity rates in August, and the players handled it wonderfully.
“We knew COVID would present challenges throughout the season, and we’ll always put student-athlete health and safety at the forefront of our decision making. We look forward to resuming team activities and getting back on the playing field.”
– – – – – – –
Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
More from Yahoo Sports:
