NC State football may postpone season opener due to COVID outbreak

NC State may be forced to postpone its season opener.

The ACC is still planning to play a football season and fans are keeping a close eye on COVID-19 test results at the schools. It seems inevitable that positive tests will show up and NC State is one school dealing with that predicament.

A report from WRALSports details how a recent batch of tests revealed 22 positives within athletics. The same report explains how the football team showed up in that bunch of positive tests.

NC State evaluating the season opener due to growing COVID-19 concerns

A two-week quarantine has become the norm for positive tests and that could mean NC State is forced to move its season opener against Virginia Tech that is currently scheduled for Sept. 12.

The school has also paused all athletic activities, so it would be unfair to NC State’s football team if they had to play a game without proper preparation. Moving the game back would see the Wolfpack open the season Sept.19 against Wake Forest. There are open dates built into this year’s schedule to allow for postponed games to be rescheduled as well.

Postponing a game affects two schools at once and the schedule could become a mess if one or more teams is forced to postpone more than one game. This has been seen in MLB and there are no such thing as doubleheaders in college football.

The ACC also has a procedure in place, according to the report, that enforces a 14-day quarantine for anyone who came in contact with a positive COVID-19 case. That complicates things even further if there is a positive in a locker room. The entire team may be forced to head into quarantine for two weeks in the middle of the season.

What happens with NC State could lay a blueprint for how the season will go for those conferences still playing this fall. Setting up some sort of bubble at each school may be the best move if a full slate of games is to be played.