Following No. 5 Texas A&M’s off-week due to the COVID-19-related postponement of the Tennessee matchup last week, and the subsequent postponement of the Ole Miss game this week, A&M coach Jimbo Fisher and senior offensive tackle Carson Green met with the media to discuss team developments.
Here’s what we learned:
Resuming in-person activity
Following reports of a pair of positive COVID-19 cases within the football program on Sunday, Nov. 8, several players have had to undergo a two-week quarantine period. Despite the quarantined players, the Aggies have kept busy and have been allowed to participate in limited practices. Quarantined players can come to campus for practices as long as they keep their distance from others, Fisher said.
“The guys that could run and train we ran and trained, not in pads but just to keep running and changing direction drills and agility drills,” Fisher said. “They threw a little bit, caught a little bit. The quarantine guys can after so many days and tests, they can in very limited small groups, train with distance and things. So we kept those guys doing that, had a good off week, this week some of the guys will get on the field with the limited guys we have available.”
Precautions
From the two recent postponements, to the game-schedule to SEC fan regulations, A&M football has tried its best to limit the spread of COVID-19. Although the recent game postponements are due to the virus spreading within the program, senior offensive tackle Carson Green said the players and the training staff have been doing everything they can to limit the spread.
“I guess we really weren’t following the whole ‘[not] go to bars’ [rule],” Green said. “I’m joking, we don’t go do that. Honestly right now, the training staff is doing a great job. They got it so down that we have individual little waters, we don’t use the gatorade bottles anymore. Just in case that’s spreading; it just happens, you can’t do anything about it.”
Silver lining
With two consecutive weeks of no A&M football games, many Aggies are disappointed. Along with this delay, other SEC games were postponed due to COVID-19, such as Alabama-LSU, so there are a lot of SEC fans craving football.
Fisher said the fact that SEC teams have seasons at all is a silver lining for 2020.
“Anytime you get to play ball, that’s a silver lining,” Fisher said. “Anytime you get to play and finish out your season and do the things, we were at a point this year where we didn’t even think we were going to get to play a game. We were wondering if we were going to even have football. So we can complain about this and that, but listen, we’re still getting to play football.”