The Ole Miss football game at Texas A&M scheduled for Nov. 21 has been postponed due to COVID-19.
The news comes following a week in which the SEC had to postpone four games as a result of positive tests and contact tracing, including Texas A&M’s scheduled road game against Tennessee.
Since Texas A&M already rescheduled its game against Tennessee for the open date of Dec. 12, the league will look for other opportunities to play the Ole Miss game, including Dec. 19, provided that the Aggies are not competing in the SEC championship game that day.
Saturday’s Ole Miss game was postponed due to the high number of Texas A&M players who remain in quarantine.
SEC protocol dictates that any player who tests positive must remain in quarantine for at least 10 days. Any player who is deemed high-risk as a result of contact tracing must remain in quarantine for at least 14 days.
“Candidly, the numbers around contact tracing … have emerged as one of our biggest challenges to playing,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said last week. “We don’t control those policies. We don’t dictate those policies. Those policies exist in the public health domain. Over time, our test positivity rate is incredibly low among our student-athletes, something like .005 percent. Even this week, the positive test numbers, even where they’ve risen, are relatively small. But the contact tracing has the potential to magnify even one positive test.
“All of which serves as a reminder, moving forward, that adjustments have to continually be made. The basic issues around mask wearing, personal hygiene, social distancing, being fully attentive, that we are living with a novel coronavirus in our culture, in our society, around the globe, is real.”
On Friday the SEC announced that it would utilize Dec. 19 as a playing date for games that needed to be rescheduled because of COVID-19.
The conference also said that teams with games postponed and no COVID-19 issues will be able to play one another, but the deadline to determine that is 9 a.m. ET Monday before the game. The games subject to rescheduling would only be those on a team’s original schedule and against opponents that a team has not yet played.
