Gators Football Players Opine on SEC COVID Outbreaks, Then and Now

Florida Gators football players reflect and discuss their own and the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in the SEC.

The Florida Gators football team knows all too well how demoralizing it can be to be forced to postpone games due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the team. Though there are protocols that are inherently built to limit the spread of the coronavirus, sometimes mistakes happen.

Now, the SEC is dealing with its own COVID outbreak with multiple teams now forced to postpone games or revert to Zoom-only meetings for the time being, entirely virtually. This Saturday, Florida will face off against a team in the Arkansas Razorbacks that is missing its head coach, Sam Pittman, due to a positive test result of COVID-19 the head coach confirmed on Tuesday.

RELATED: Arkansas' Pittman Won't Coach vs. Florida, Odom Named Interim HC

In his stead will be Razorbacks defensive cooridnator Barry Odom, who has had success against Florida in the past as Missouri's head coach from 2016-19. While the Razorbacks will be playing this week, multiple teams, including Auburn, Missouri, Texas A&M, Mississppi State and LSU are dealing with game postponements due to positive test results and contact tracing.

Update:

Georgia-Mizzou 💀
Vanderbilt-Kentucky 👌
A&M-Tennessee 💀
Bama-LSU 💀
Arkansas-Florida 👌
South Carolina-Ole Miss 👌
Mississippi State-Auburn 💀 https://t.co/ZU6sOWKZyQ

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) November 11, 2020

According to SI's Ross Dellenger, only Auburn has more than four positive test results, with 13. The rest of the teams fall under the current SEC roster threshold of 53 players due to contact tracing. Gators players know just how difficult a postponement this year can be for a team, including kicker Evan McPherson who missed three weeks due to the postponement and a positive test result of his own.

"Kind of keeping everybody safe is a main focus for us and has been. I think that we've had zero positive tests in the last two weeks," McPherson said of his team's current situation.

"So that's a great number to look at. We're just trying to stay safe as possible because, for me, I come to football and then kind of just go back to the house. And somehow I picked it up from here to there. So, you can try to stay as safe as possible, but it catches somebody somehow. You just got to be ready for it, and I think we do a good job with preventing it."

At one point the Gators football team had upwards of 37 positive COVID-19 test results reported in a short span, which ultimately caused them to postpone its games against LSU and Missouri. The team would go on to play Missouri the following week, while looking to play LSU on Dec. 12.

Preventing a spread can be done by wearing masks, physical distancing and other preventative meaures, however, sometimes a team will simply be unlucky or a protocol will not quite catch a player or two from spreading it themselves. For example, at Florida the team received positive test results from at least two players who did not initially report symptoms before traveling with the team to play Texas A&M.

“I was really fortunate not to have any symptoms. Maybe I had like a mild headache, stuffy nose. That’s about it. I could’ve gotten it from the A&M trip," McPherson said of his expernence with the virus.

Gators linebacker James Houston IV says, oftentime, it seems as though people might take it easy, get too relaxed, because of how long the virus has been around now - since March and April when the virus first began to truely disrupt the country and sports as a whole.

“We’ve been going through this COVID thing for quite awhile, since March, April. And it kind of seems like you kind of lax off, because you get a little bit comfortable and maybe you haven’t got it, and you get a little comfortable, and then another wave hits, and so you’ve got to constantly remind yourself that we are still in the pandemic," Houston said on Tuesday when meeting with the Florida media.

"We need to mask up and wash your hands and make sure you’re staying safe, because it’s your health overall. We all took the risk-reward of playing the season, we all thought we had a great chance of winning the national championship this year, so we’ve all got to stay safe and do our part so that we can go accomplish those goals.”

Prior to the season, Gators defensive lineman Zachary Carter, who's father dealt with COVID-19 himself, had concerns about the coronavirus protocols within college football. However, after reviewing the precuations taken, he ultimately decided to participate in the season along with several other teammates who had concerns. Many players, including those in the SEC, have opted out of the season.

Even having been through an outbreak within his own team, Carter still feels safe with how the team and league is handling the pandemic.

"At the beginning it is what I had concerns about," Carter said Tuesday. "But once I got back into the groove of things and started playing again. Although we had a break out I still feel like this is a very safe environment. We handle all our protocols well. I mean, guys feel safe around here so I don’t have any issues.”

Ultimately, teams will continue to deal with the coronavirus, but as the season continues and nears an end, it could get increasingly difficult to re-schedule games, ultimately forcing teams to end the season with less than the 10 allotted games. For now, the safety and wellfare of the players, coaches and personnel of each program comes first.