Texas Football: Texas Tech had 75 COVID-19 cases ahead of Big 12 opener

A very large number of positive COVID-19 cases is still a looming problem for the Texas football Big 12 opener opponent, Texas Tech.

There are some college football programs around the country that did have some pretty insane numbers in terms of the amount of positive cases for the novel coronavirus since student athletes arrived back on campus earlier in the summer. The Texas football program had roughly a dozen positive tests for COVID-19 at one point early in summer workouts, but the numbers seemingly dwindled down since then.

A big number for teams like the LSU Tigers and Clemson Tigers also marked some of the early news from COVID-19 testing in the earlier portions of the offseason. Head coach Tom Herman and this athletic staff apparently did a good job ahead of their season opener of keeping the number of cases down on the team.

But the Big 12 opener for the Longhorns, against the Texas Tech Red Raiders on the road in Lubbock on Sep. 26, didn’t have as much luck in containing the outbreaks on their team. Head coach Matt Wells and his Texas Tech squad reportedly (Nicole Auberbach of The Athletic on Twitter) have six active cases among student athletes, and 69 recoveries.

https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1305668929877159936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1305668929877159936%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flonghornswire.usatoday.com%2F2020%2F09%2F15%2Ftuesday-big-12-morning-rush-texas-tech-and-oklahoma-states-covid-updates%2F

That does mean that Wells had “75 football players” with COVID-19 at some point since the student athletes started getting tested during the 2020 offseason. Few programs have a number anything close to that, at least that we know of publicly.

Another Big 12 opponent down the road for the Longhorns, head coach Mike Gundy and the Oklahoma State Cowboys, also had their COVID-19 case numbers released on Sep. 15. The Pokes reportedly sit at zero positive cases of COVID-19 ahead of their delayed season opener on Sep. 19 against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.

Texas faces Oklahoma State on Halloween, so the number of active cases that Texas Tech is dealing with is much more pertinent to the Longhorns at this moment.

Texas Tech did get a win in their season opener, but not by a big margin. They were only able to close out FCS Houston Baptist by a one possession margin last weekend. It is rare that the Red Raiders get an FCS scare like they did in their opener.

Texas got a win in their opener at home on Sep. 12 by the final score of 59-3 over the UTEP Miners. They’ll be looking to go 2-0 in the month of September if they can overcome Wells and the Red Raiders on the road in just under two weeks.