Georgia Football: COVID 19 strikes again, with zero cases

Georgia football punished once again for the negligence of others.

Georgia football has done an excellent job, so far, keeping its players away from COVID 19. They have put protocols in place to keep their players out of harm’s way. As of now, it is looking like the players are adhering to those protocols and listening to their coaches. The proof of this lies in the fact that Georgia has not had one single positive test all season, for a player or on the staff.

However, other teams in the conference cannot say the same thing. Florida had an outbreak of 25 cases just three weeks ago. This outbreak ended up altering Georgia’s schedule, forcing them to postpone their game with Kentucky, and instead of having a bye week before facing Florida, they would play the Wildcats and Gators in back to back weeks. All because of Florida’s negligence.

Georgia football is again facing a game postponement due to the other team having a positive COVID test. This time it isn’t the outbreak that Florida experienced, but instead, Missouri has reported just two positive tests for the virus. However, the game has had to be postponed due to contact tracing placing other players into quarantine.

What was supposed to be a noon kickoff on November 14, will now most likely be rescheduled for December 19.

Where are all these positive tests coming from? Why are we not seeing more positive tests across the entire SEC and not just a few teams? These teams are playing each other week in and week out, why is there not more spread? SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey did a recent press conference to answer these and other questions about COVID and how it is affecting the SEC.

“From my perspective, when we dig into what happens, it’s out-of-field, out-of-athletic-department behavior generally”, Sankey told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday. He went on to say, “people are still living lives outside of the playing field and weight room, and that has an impact on both exposure and on contact tracing as I understand.”

“Out-of-field, out-of-athletic-department behavior” is correct. This is exactly why five SEC teams have reported cases just this week.  Of those five, three definitely came from off the field activities. Texas A&M after coming home from being on the road, LSU after a Halloween party, and Mississippi State found their cases came from other students on campus after contact tracing.

The SEC team with the most cases would be Auburn with 13. They are the only team involved with the SEC’s game postponements that have over four cases. However, at each of these schools, there are a combined 30 players in quarantine.

With all this going on there are now whispers that the SEC may not even finish their football season this year. That would be a real shame as programs such as Georgia’s have kept their nose clean and haven’t had a single positive all year. Yet, this is usually the consequence when you have to rely on others to do as they should. All you can control is what you do.

The SEC as a whole needs to look at itself and what it is doing and decide if they want to hold their programs accountable or not. There are programs, such as Georgia football, that have come through this without a single case, so it can be done. You just have to be willing to put the time and effort into making sure your team is doing the right thing.

Is it too much to ask for a head coach to be a leader and to hold his kids responsible? Apparently, for some, it is. Until all these coaches hold their kids to the same standards we are going to keep seeing cases like this. It is time for those coaches to stand up and be real leaders of men. Not just on the football field, but off it as well.