Seven Kansas State football players test positive for COVID-19 as season approaches
Kansas State football coach Chris Klieman said he was nervous to see the results from this week’s round of coronavirus testing now that players have enjoyed free time away from practice and the student body is back on campus for the start of fall classes.
Now we know why.
Seven K-State football players tested positive for COVID-19 after undergoing surveillance testing this week, according to team spokesman Kenny Lannou. This is the first known spike in coronavirus cases within the Wildcats’ roster since the they experienced an outbreak during voluntary summer workouts and briefly had to pause all team activities for a few weeks in late June and early July.
Despite the positive cases, K-State will continue to practice as scheduled, according to Lannou, as the Wildcats prepare for their season-opening game against Arkansas State on Sept. 12.
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that K-State will forge ahead with preseason camp, considering Texas Tech remains on the practice field after experiencing 21 positive tests this week. And Oklahoma continued ahead with practice after nine of its players tested positive earlier this month.
K-State athletic director Gene Taylor said football players were given a day off over the weekend, and that Klieman and his assistant coaches reminded their team to make good decisions and avoid crowds as K-State deals with an increased number of cases across its campus.
Those precautionary words helped the vast majority of K-State’s roster, which features nearly 140 members, avoide testing positive for COVID-19 this week, but not all.
“I think every institution is worried about that over the new few weeks to a month with all of the students coming back,” Klieman said during a news conference on Tuesday. “It’s going to be difficult, there’s no question. They’re still 18-to-22-year-old college students.”
The question for Klieman now is: How do the Wildcats navigate the next two weeks of practice without a chunk of their players? On top of the seven players that tested positive this week, sources have said four other K-State players have decided to “opt out” of the upcoming season because of concerns about the coronavirus.
If those missing players are spread out across multiple positions, their absenses might not impact Klieman’s game plan for the Arkansas State game. But if several of them are at the same position, the Wildcats may need to have certain players temporarily change positions.
It is unclear how long K-State players will need to be away from the time as they quarantine and recover from the coronavirus, but their status for the season-opener is in jeopardy.
According to new Big 12 safety protocol, all players that test positive for COVID-19 must isolate for approximately two weeks, test negative for the coronavirus and then undergo a series of other tests. They include an EKG, troponin blood test, echocardiogram, and cardiac MRI.
The seven K-State players that tested positive this week will likely be unable to play until the Wildcats’ conference-opener at Oklahoma on Sept. 26.
This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 12:06 PM with the headline "Seven Kansas State football players test positive for COVID-19 as season approaches."