Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1315054
It's been an unsettling year for everyone in college football due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Penn State included. While the Nittany Lions hadn't had to call off any games as of this writing, they have gotten more than their share of scares due to the prevalence of false positives that have come up as part of the daily testing regimen instituted by the Big Ten. At his Nov. 17 news confer- ence, coach James Franklin said that Penn State had gotten 39 false positives to that point in the season. During a brief media availability the follow- ing day, he amended that figure, report- ing that the total number of false posi- tives had grown to 43. And it wasn't just players who were testing positive; coaches, too, were being flagged and subsequently having to miss practice. "We didn't have [cornerbacks coach] Terry Smith for two days this week, and we didn't have [defensive coordinator] Brent Pry today," Franklin said following practice on Nov. 18. "It's been an issue all year. Knock on wood, and thank God, we're not having the COVID positives where one or two guys are missing for long periods of time. But we're constantly missing players and staff from practices and meetings and work all day." When the Big Ten presidents and chancellors voted in September to go forward with a fall football season, their decision was predicated on the wide- spread availability of rapid COVID tests. All schools were required to provide daily antigen testing for players, coaches and on-field personnel. The results of those tests were to be completed and recorded before every practice. Anyone who tested positive was required to take a polymerase chain reaction test to con- | NEWS & NOTES HALL MONITOR Franklin coaches his team during a workout at Hol- uba Hall on Nov. 11. Photo by Mark Selders/Penn State Athletics F O O T B A L L False positives impact Lions' practice routine