Michigan State pauses workouts after one staffer tests positive for COVID-19

We can officially add Michigan State to the growing list of football programs hitting the workout pause button.

Wednesday evening, MSU announced that it is pausing workouts. Why? Because one staffer tested positive for COVID-19. The program will also delay the next phase of the return allowed by the NCAA as a result.

Below is MSU’s statement on the development:

As Michigan State football prepared for the beginning of the 20-hour week, during which student-athletes and staff would be in larger groups than they had been during the voluntary workouts or the eight-hour weeks, it conducted surveillance COVID-19 testing on all staff members over the weekend, and previously scheduled surveillance COVID-19 testing on student-athletes Wednesday afternoon. Late Wednesday afternoon, after testing on student-athletes had been completed, one staff member received a positive result. Michigan State football will pause workouts and will not begin its 20-hour weeks until it receives the complete results from all surveillance testing.

Michigan State football is the latest but certainly not the first impacted by the pandemic. Or the last, more than likely.

Late last week, Indiana hit the pause button. In the span of a week prior to that, Ohio State , Maryland and North Carolina confirmed they were putting a temporary halt to voluntary workouts because of the results of recent COVID-19 testing among its student-athletes. July 3, Kansas became yet another FBS program to pause voluntary workouts after 12 players tested positive for COVID-19. Earlier in that same week, Arizona announced that it was pausing its phased return of student-athletes to campus. Prior to that, eight individuals connected to the Boise State football program tested positive, forcing the school to temporarily scuttle workouts. June 20, K-State announced that it is pausing all voluntary workouts as well. The reason? “[A] total of 14 student-athletes have tested positive for active COVID-19 following PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing of more than 130 student-athletes.” The weekend before that, Houston decided to put a halt to voluntary on-campus workouts after six symptomatic UH student-athletes tested positive for COVID-19.

All told, more than 10 FBS schools have hit the coronavirus-related pause button.

Other programs had seen a high number of players test positive but continued workouts. Among those are Clemson (37 players tested positive), LSU (30 players quarantined), Texas (13 confirmed positives for football players) and Texas Tech (23 positives for players/staffers).

Oklahoma, meanwhile, is down to zero active cases.