The Wisconsin Badgers will not be playing their game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers this Saturday. On Wednesday, Wisconsin announced the football team had paused all team-related activities for at least seven days because of an increased number of COVID-19 cases. This means their game against Nebraska has been canceled and it won’t be rescheduled.
As mentioned by ESPN, 12 people in the Wisconsin program has tested positive for the coronavirus in the past five days. Head coach Paul Chryst is one of the people who contracted the virus and is currently isolating at home. “This morning, I received the news that I had tested positive via a PCR test I took yesterday,” Chryst said in a statement. “I informed my staff and the team this morning and am currently isolating at home. I had not been experiencing any symptoms and feel good as of this morning.”
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Chryst went to say that he is “disappointed for our players and coaching staff who put so much into preparing to play each week.” He also stated that the players, coaches, and staff’s safety is the “top priority and I support the decision made to pause our team activities.” Wisconsin, the No. 9 team in the country, is coming off a 45-7 win over Illinois last week. The game against Nebraska was supposed to the Cornhuskers’ home opener, but the team will now wait a couple more weeks before playing their first game of the year at Memorial Stadium.
“We have said from the beginning that the health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and staff members comes first,” Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said in a statement. “Over the past several days, we have seen a rising number of student-athletes and staff contract the virus. The responsible thing for us to do is to pause football-related activities for at least seven days.”
Wisconsin and Nebraska are two members of the Big Ten Conference. In August, the Big Ten decided to postpone football and fall sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The league decided to play football this fall with an eight-game schedule in an eight-week span in September. The Pac-12 originally postponed football but will start back up on Nov. 7. The Big 12, ACC and SEC have been playing at least for the last month.
