Whatever the final results of the 2020 college football season hold, just the fact that Notre Dame, and so many others, were able to finish a regular season was its own form of a championship effort in The Year of COVID-19.
Entering the Dec. 19 weekend, at least 131 Football Bowl Subdivision games had to be canceled or postponed. Notre Dame had its own setback with a postponement of the Sept. 26 game at Wake Forest (rescheduled for Dec. 12 but then cancelled by the ACC) , but the 10-0 Fighting Irish enter this Saturday's ACC Championship versus Clemson ranked No. 2 thanks in part to due diligence while managing the coronavirus crisis.
Per a release today (Dec. 14) from the school with the information from University Physician Dr. Matt Leiszler, 191 COVID-19 tests were administered to Notre Dame football student-athletes from Dec. 7-13, and only one positive test resulted. He is in isolation, and no close contacts were identified, meaning no one else is in quarantine.
While good fortune plays a role, having nearly perfect results in the past two months while undergoing testing several times per week is also a testament to adhering to protocol and discipline. Among the steps were housing management and rearranging it.
“It became position critical,” said Notre Dame director of athletics Jack Swarbrick. “You couldn’t have a group of offensive linemen, a group of tight ends — pick your position group — all living together because the housing would produce contact tracing if one student got sick. We became very intentional about that once we saw the consequences in action.”
Next was meal management.
“The No. 1 risk time is meals,” Swarbrick said. “When you’re seated in that environment and engaged in consuming food, it presents a special challenge.”
Thus, Notre Dame’s entire support staff had some added roles in their job descriptions.
“When we’re on the road, we walk into that hotel, the buffet’s already set up, it is staffed by members of our staff: strength and conditioning coach(es), Father Nate [Wills], by our nutritionists, by our recruiting personnel, and they’re the ones serving us to minimize the risks,” Swarbrick said.
“You take it in the to-go container, you go directly up to your room and you don’t leave your room.”
Engineering some other social engagement or settings was a challenge, and Swarbrick admitted certain situations “would drive me crazy” — transportation among them.
“I’d see a group of student-athletes who faithfully wore their masks the entire time they were in the same building — and then four of them jump in the same car and take their mask off,” he said.
He was surprised, though, at how the risk associated with practice and game competition was actually “very small.”
“We just didn’t have evidence of transmission of the virus during those periods,” he said.
The Sept. 19 game versus South Florida was a prime example. It was later ascertained that Notre Dame had to have had some players who saw action in that 52-0 victory who were active with the virus — yet there was no transmission to USF.
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