Texas Football: Impact of Nick Saban testing positive for COVID-19

All of the novel coronavirus news popping up around college football can impact Texas football. And it hit a peak with Nick Saban testing positive today.

This might be the most difficult week of the 2020 college football season to date, in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. And while the Texas football program doesn’t have any positive COVID-19 tests/active cases that we know of as of the afternoon of Oct. 14, there’s a lot going on around them that could have a big impact on their season.

The two latest bits of COVID-19 news that will have a massive impact around the entire country involves the news (per an official release from the university and Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic) of all of the Baylor Bears active cases and that the Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban has tested positive. The news that Saban tested positive for COVID-19 dropped on the evening of Oct. 14, followed by a raucous reaction on social media and around the college football media landscape.

Apparently it wasn’t just Saban that tested positive for COVID-19 this week, the Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne also has an active case.

There’s a massive game scheduled for the Crimson Tide this coming weekend, against the No. 3 ranked Georgia Bulldogs and head coach Kirby Smart. But that game might be called into question now, or at least Saban is likely to be absent, given this news from the Crimson Tide’s COVID-19 active cases.

And we already saw the huge contest between the defending National Champion LSU Tigers and Florida Gators called off due to COVID-19 related issues. The big LSU-Florida matchup that was set for this coming weekend is not the only impactful game around the Power Five conferences that was cancelled.

Due to their sizable COVID-19 outbreak, Baylor had to halt their matchup against the No. 7 ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys in Waco for Oct. 17. That meeting between Oklahoma State and Baylor is now set for mid-December.

The fact that Baylor has more than 25 active cases of COVID-19 on their roster following their trip to Morgantown a little less than two weeks ago to face West Virginia could also call their Oct. 24 matchup with the Longhorns into question. There’s a lot of moving parts associated with all of the new COVID-19 cases we’re seeing pop up around the college football landscape early this week.

Texas is heading into a bye week this weekend, which could be a good thing with all of these COVID-19 cases popping up around the country. The SEC is dealing with the brunt of the blows from COVID-19 cases this week, but Baylor coming down with so many cases is impacting the Big 12 too. And a ton of attention will be brought to this issue with Saban coming down with COVID-19 this week.