Ole Miss Football Experiencing COVID-19 Issues, But "Could Play (Game) Today"
Florida is on full hold of football activities after a COVID-19 outbreak amongst players and coaches, thus causing a postponement of their game Saturday vs. LSU. The Vanderbilt Commodores do not have enough available players due to COVID and their game this week against Mizzou has also been postponed.
Ole Miss is close to having the same issues.
Head coach Lane Kiffin confirmed on a media session Wednesday at the Rebels are "having an issue" with COVID-19 amongst the roster currently. Kiffin would not get disclose the number of cases, as he doesn't have to, but did say that they have enough players to play the game on Saturday, as of right now.
"For the first time we are having an issue with that," Kiffin said. "I'm not going to get into the numbers. It's very difficult moving people around, and we're already beat up to from high play count Saturday vs. great team."
When asked if they had the requisite numbers to play the game, Kiffin said "We could play today. We'll see."
It's the first time in over a month that the Rebels have had any sort of COVID-19 scare. For the past five consecutive weeks, they have reported not one single positive COVID-19 case among the team or staff.
As far as individual players are concerned, Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral, running backs Jerrion Ealy and Snoop Connor and receiver Elijah Moore all practiced today. This is per a practice highlights video sent out by the team, which is standard for a Wednesday practice. We can safely assume they are not on the COVID-19 list for the Rebels at this point.
The SEC has requirements on the number of players to play a game. You must have 53 scholarship players, including seven offensive linemen, one quarterback and four defensive linemen, though teams below the threshold can opt to play anyway if they get league approval. According to Kiffin on Wednesday, Ole Miss has met all four requirements.
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