Notre Dame Will Reportedly Resume Practice Wednesday
Notre Dame plans to return to practice eight days after hitting pause due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the team.
Brian Kelly told ESPN Tuesday afternoon that practice will resume Wednesday, 10 days out from the Irish's next scheduled game on Oct. 10 against Florida State. He also said he expects to have 90 percent of the team available to practice by Saturday.
The cause of the outbreak, per Kelly, was rooted in two areas on the day of a 52-0 win over South Florida on Sept. 19: the pregame meal at the hotel and a player who threw up on the sideline during the game, was only treated for dehydration and tested positive for the virus two days later.
"Throughout our entire time together, we had not had one meal where we sat down together," Kelly told ESPN's Heather Dinich. "Everything was grab and go. We get into our game situation where we have pregame meal together, and that cost us. Big. We had somebody who was asymptomatic, and it spread like wildfire throughout our meeting area where we were eating and then it got guys in contact tracing."
Notre Dame now plans to eat its pregame meals at a large convention center were it can space players out more and prevent face-to-face contact. It also will have rapid antigen tests available on the sideline during games. The player who threw up did not have a concussion or any other injuries, leading the training staff to treat him for dehydration.
"In trying to discern the difference between somebody who may be dehydrated in a game, and having the effects of COVID on the sideline, [it] becomes very tricky," Kelly said. "Just being vigilant and understanding that this thing can hide in so many different areas make it a tricky proposition, even if you're doing all of the right things.
"We have to think about giving antigen tests on the sidelines for stuff that we never thought of. That's the kind of shifting sands in this whole thing, learning in-game what do you do, what don't you do. We test Friday nights, too, so you're hoping your PCR test is getting that, but it's still a 50-50 proposition if you're cooking over that time, so there's still a little bit of uncertainty."
Practices have been paused since Sept. 22, when Notre Dame revealed seven new positive COVID-19 cases within the team and 23 players in isolation or quarantine. The Sept. 26 game at Wake Forest was also called off the day, and was moved to Dec. 12 instead of the mutual open date of Oct. 3. Notre Dame announced 18 new positives from 273 tests administered between Sept. 22 and Sunday.
All told, 25 players are in isolation after testing positive and 14 others are in quarantine through contact tracing.
Notre Dame started the season 2-0 with wins over Duke and USF. If the game against Florida State goes as scheduled, the Irish will have taken 21 off in between games.
This story will be updated.
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