Purdue's game at Wisconsin this Saturday, Nov. 7, has been cancelled, according to an announcement by Wisconsin on Tuesday.
Wisconsin instituted a seven-day pause last Wednesday to help contain a COVID-19 outbreak that includes head coach Paul Chryst as a confirmed case. Wisconsin's Rivals.com site reports that offensive coordinator Joe Rudolph and quarterbacks Graham Mertz and Chase Wolf also have the virus through sourced reporting. The earliest Chryst could be back to the office is Nov. 5.
Tuesday, Wisconsin reported 27 active cases, 15 student-athletes and 12 staff
Wisconsin fell into the “orange/red” designation of the Big Ten protocol which required enhanced preventative measures but not an automatic cancellation of practices and games. No word on if Wisconsin's increase positive tests has put them into the “red/red” category.
That led to the cancellation of the Badgers' game at Nebraska last Saturday. Now, Wisconsin--which opened the season with a 45-7 win vs. Illinois--will miss a second game.
The Big Ten has said that cancelled games will be deemed a "no contest" and won't be made up. Because of its late start to the 2020 season, the Big Ten was unable to build-in off weeks to accommodate make-up games. The league began play Oct. 23-24 and is slated to play each weekend--nine games in nine weeks--until Dec. 18-19.
Speaking to ESPN’s College GameDay last Saturday, Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez said the program is up 22 cases (12 players and 10 staff), an increase of seven cases from the update the program gave last Thursday.
“We’re still having additions in our cases and that’s something we’ve got to get our arms around and control,” Alvarez said.
Wisconsin is slated to return to practices on Wednesday and would have had just three days of on-field practices before its scheduled November 7 game against Purdue.
The state of Wisconsin reported 5,096 new COVID-19 cases last Friday, the second highest total of the pandemic, and 24 deaths.
Purdue already has had to deal with COVID-19. Boilermaker head coach Jeff Brohm became the first Big Ten coach to be infected last month, with the school announcing an initial positive on Oct. 18. He missed the Boilermakers' season-opening 24-20 win vs. Iowa. Brohm emerged from a 10-day isolation on Oct. 28 and worked the sideline during Purdue's 31-24 victory at Illinois on Saturday.
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The Big Ten tests is players and staffers daily, while abiding by other health and safety protocols. Still, the coronavirus has proven to be evasive.
According to the Big Ten’s coronavirus protocols, a team has to cease practice and competition for a minimum of seven days if its player positivity rate is greater than five percent over a seven-day rolling average or its population positivity rate — that includes all staffers within a program — is greater than the 7.5 percent.
By not playing vs. Purdue, Wisconsin now can't afford to miss another game if it wants to qualify for the Big Ten title game. The conference said last week that teams must play a minimum of six games of an eight-game-plus-one schedule to be considered eligible for the league title game.
Division standings will be decided via winning percentage, meaning a team that is 7-1 at the end of its eight-game regular season schedule will have the edge over a 6-1 team that was unable to play a game.
The Big Ten’s rules also state that a player who tests positive must sit out a minimum of 21 days from the date of the first positive test. In that time, the player will undergo a comprehensive health and cardiac screening before being allowed to return to action. That means a Wisconsin player who tested positive after the Illinois game could miss two more weeks of competition before being allowed to play.
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