Ole Miss dealing with virus
FAYETTEVILLE — Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin revealed Wednesday that his football program was dealing with a covid-19 outbreak that has “a number of guys” out of practice this week.
The Rebels (1-2) are scheduled to face the University of Arkansas (1-2) on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
Kiffin did not give exact numbers of positive tests or players caught up in contact tracing, but he said in a Zoom conference with Ole Miss reporters and then on the SEC coaches teleconference that the Rebels’ numbers were down.
“For the first time we are having issues with that,” Kiffin said on the video conference. “We have a number of guys out. I’m not going to get into numbers.
“We have not had that in-season. We had that during camp. This is the first time dealing with it in-season. It’s very difficult moving people around, and we’re beat up too from a high play count in an intense game and playing a great team Saturday. We are not in a great situation numbers-wise at all.”
Kiffin added the Rebels’ current testing numbers would keep the program within the mandatory minimum parameters, including 53 healthy scholarship players, set by the SEC to participate in a game.
He was asked on the SEC coaches teleconference whether the Rebels had an
affected position group on the brink of the standards that could cause a postponement.
“I hope not,” he said. “If we were to play today we could play, so hopefully it stays that way.”
Kiffin said the week will be “very challenging,” but he did not provide testing numbers to the media.
“Just like injuries, we’re not going to get into any detail on that,” he said. “We’re just going to manage it the best we can.”
Ole Miss is the third team during Week 4 of the SEC-only schedule to exhibit high covid-19 numbers. The issue at Vanderbilt has forced postponement of the Commodores’ game against Missouri on Saturday. And on Wednesday, an outbreak on the Florida team caused the postponement of the Florida-LSU game scheduled for Saturday.