Josh Paschal, left, goes through a drill at Saturday's UK practice. Tennessee called off practice due to a COVID-19 outbreak. (UK Athletics Photo)
Kentucky hopefully opens the football season in three weeks. However, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops has warned that a COVID-19 outbreak anywhere in the Southeastern Conference could derail UK’s season.
Auburn has had to cancel practices because of having players test positive. Then Saturday Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt said the Vols have had 48 players miss 14 days due to quarantine via contract tracing. Two players have even had to quarantine twice. Tennessee was scheduled to scrimmage Saturday but with 44 players still out including those with injuries there was no way to scrimmage.
Kentucky is supposed to open the season September 26 at Auburn and Stoops knows going on the road presents COVID-19 concerns.
“We’re looking at all those things. Bringing our own people, bringing our own buses. Meals are going to be different,” Stoops said. “We haven’t had a team meal all through camp. We’ll continue to be as effective as we possibly can and as safe as we possibly can.”
Kentucky, like other teams, has not been able to have all his players in the same meeting room.
“We do Zoom and they’re in breakout rooms so their coaches are in there, and there’s some communication that way, but it’s very difficult for me not to be able to spend that time I normally would in a team meeting,” Stoops said.
“Not being able to do some of the things we normally do with the continuity and the team building and the relationships with our players, there has to be some awareness to that,” Stoops said. “I brought attention to the leaders and to the team, to make a conscious effort to extend themselves to teammates and people they wouldn’t normally.”
