Texas Football: COVID-19 positive cases rapidly dropping for Longhorns

The Texas football program seems to have the number of novel coronavirus cases under control per head coach Tom Herman at this moment.

Although there were a lot of alterations that occurred around the Power Five conferences earlier this month, the Big 12 and SEC seem to be taking a more patient approach. Albeit, we don’t know if that patience means that they are taking a more calculated approach to the 2020 season in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. What we do know is that the Texas football program is still pushing ahead for the 2020 season, and still has a full schedule lined up for the fall as originally planned.

One of the biggest scares for the Longhorns so far this offseason was the original set of positive COVID-19 tests back in June, when the athletes were first brought back to campus for voluntary workouts. Texas had more than a dozen positive COVID-19 tests even before the month of July began.

It does appear now that Texas has their number of COVID-19 cases under better control than they did at the outset of voluntary workouts. When head coach Tom Herman was on a virtual call on July 23 with the Houston Touchdown Club, he spoke on the COVID-19 numbers essentially dropping rapidly. That is at least compared to where they were at last month.

More specifically, Herman reportedly stated that the COVID-19 cases at this point in time were “almost non-existent”, which is great to hear for this program. Since Texas is still planning on playing a full non-con and Big 12 schedule this fall, making sure that the COVID-19 case numbers are under control on this team is pivotal with how close we are to supposed kick-off.

Texas is supposed to open up the 2020 season on Sep. 5 at home against the South Florida Bulls. That game is planned to have 50 percent capacity in attendance at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, as are the rest of the home contests this year.

The 2019 season for the Longhorns wrapped up with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12) after they knocked off the Utah Utes in the Alamo Bowl. They should once again have high expectations heading into the 2020 season, in whatever method it happens.