As COVID-19 continued to ravage the college football schedule Monday, Arizona Wildcats coach Kevin Sumlin offered some encouraging news.
“We don’t have those issues right now,” he said.
Sumlin followed that statement with a warning.
“That can change tomorrow,” he said. “This is the world we live in right now.”
The reality of the pandemic blindsided the Wildcats on Friday afternoon. Just 25 hours before they were supposed to kick off their season at Utah, the Pac-12 announced that the game had been canceled because the Utes had suffered a COVID outbreak. It was the second cancellation in the Pac-12 and the 10th game to be called off across college football.
As of late Monday afternoon, two games slated for Saturday already had been nixed: Air Force-Wyoming and Auburn-Mississippi State. Meanwhile, LSU coach Ed Orgeron said several Tigers would be unavailable to face Alabama on Saturday because of positive test results and contact tracing. And Texas A&M paused football activities because of positives tests.
Almost 50 games have been postponed or canceled since late August. The Utah-UCLA and Cal-Arizona State games are up in the air because of lingering issues with the Utes and Golden Bears.
Sumlin said the UA has had “some” COVID cases since the pandemic began. (The university has not released test results for student-athletes since early September.) The coach himself tested positive and missed the first two practices of fall camp in early October.
“I think what we’ve done has been as good as anybody from a health and safety standpoint,” said Sumlin, whose team is slated to host No. 20-ranked USC on Saturday. “And if we do have those issues, we’ve addressed them immediately.
“Right now, things are going pretty well. But as you’ve seen around the country, that can change, and if it does, it does.”
Sumlin had the unenviable task of informing the team that its long-awaited opener — scheduled over two months past the original opener, on Aug. 29 against Hawaii – had been canceled. The UA athletic department learned of the possibility Friday morning, and it became official around lunchtime. The Wildcats were just finishing their final practice. They were about to have lunch, board buses and head to the airport.
“It’s really difficult,” Sumlin said. “There were some extremely frustrated young men, some tears. They’re putting a lot of work into it. … To go home right after that was a little deflating.”
Sumlin met with his five player captains later Friday afternoon, and they decided the team should get together for a workout Saturday morning. So they did, at 8:30, freeing them up to watch the ASU-USC game at 10.
“I thought it was important for them to talk as captains and teammates to the other players, just like through this whole thing,” Sumlin said. “The big thing to me was, what now? This has happened, and we’re not happy, but now what? That’s where leadership from the top, from us as coaches, but also within the team, can be important,”
Sumlin also believed it was important to keep some sort of routine, and the Saturday workout helped accomplish that. The players received the day off Sunday, per usual, and conducted their first practice for USC on Monday.
Shifting gears gave the Wildcats something to look forward to after the bitter disappointment of Friday.
“Another weekend of watching everybody else play becomes frustrating,” Sumlin said. “But guess what? We’ve got a great opportunity this week at home. And that’s where we are right now.”
Utah ‘decimated’ by virus
Utah coach Kyle Whittingham told reporters Monday that two position groups were “decimated” by positive test results and contact tracing. “That’s why, ultimately, we didn’t play,” Whittingham said.
COVID-19 has hit the state of Utah particularly hard. Gov. Gary Herbert declared a state of emergency Sunday night and issued a statewide mask mandate. The state reported a record 437 virus-related hospitalizations Sunday.
The Utah athletic department said one student-athlete who has not been with the football program since August recently tested positive and had to be hospitalized. He since has been released “and is doing much better,” the school said.
Utah was unable to meet the Pac-12 threshold of 53 available scholarship players for the Arizona game. Walk-ons and members of the scout team have been moved up the depth chart for UCLA, Whittingham said. Still, he said Utah “barely” has enough players to field a lineup vs. the Bruins.
“Every day is different,” Whittingham said. “We could get a few more positives this week, and that could knock us out for this weekend, so it is a day-to-day thing. We are doing our best to play the game, but if we lose many more guys this week, it may be a situation where we are not able to.”
The Utah-UCLA game was moved from Friday to Saturday to give the Utes an extra day to work through their issues.
Aggressive Orlando
Sumlin’s final year at Texas A&M, 2017, overlapped with new USC defensive coordinator Todd Orlando’s first year at Texas. Although the Aggies didn’t play the Longhorns that season, Sumlin has a sense for what Orlando is going to send the Wildcats’ way.
“He’s gonna be extremely aggressive,” Sumlin said. “Every play … whether it’s zone pressure or man pressure, it’s pressure. That’s who he is.”
Although ASU scored 27 points against USC, Sun Devils sophomore quarterback Jayden Daniels had one of the least efficient passing performances of his career. His 47.8% completion rate was his third worst in 13 games.
“They’ve got veteran players and a veteran defensive coordinator that is going to bring it,” Sumlin said. “They faced a young quarterback last week and brought it. They’ve got another young one this this week. I don’t think that’s gonna change for him.”
UA sophomore quarterback Grant Gunnell is slated to make his fourth career start.
Extra points
- Sumlin’s overall view of USC, which needed a furious rally to beat ASU by a point: “This is a veteran team that’s already played a game and been in a close game. So they should have some confidence. What do you expect from USC? They’ve got those kind of guys. All that being said, that game could have gone either way at the end.”
- Fox Sports’ top announcing crew of Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt and Jenny Taft has been assigned to the USC-UA game.
- Arizona’s game at Washington on Nov. 21 is slated for a 6 p.m. kickoff (5 p.m. in Seattle). The game will be televised by Fox.
- Sumlin said playing Washington instead of Utah this past weekend was never a serious consideration. “I don’t know how you can just flip around and play another college football team in 24 hours,” he said. “That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
