Bears seek ‘ clarity’ on status of game
Four days before his team is scheduled to play a nationally televised game at Arizona State, Cal football coach JustinWilcox still isn’t sure if the matchup will even happen.
“We’re trying to get more clarity on that, but those are not discussions that I’m involved in,” Wilcox said Tuesday morning. “If they tell us there’s a chance we could play, we’re going to practice. We’re going to continue to work at it. The only way to look at it is to be optimistic. That’s the only way to look at it. Until they tell us otherwise, that’s what we’re doing.”
Whether the Bears can play will depend on officials from Berkeley Public Health, which is having Cal’s entire defensive line quarantined for up to 14 days after those players were exposed to a teammate who tested positive for the coronavirus. Last week, the Bears canceled their game againstWashington because, after a good chunk of the roster was put in quarantine, they couldn’t field the required 53 scholarship players.
With Saturday’s game against the Sun Devils in flux, Wilcox’s team has little choice other than to proceed as if it’s playing. But without a defensive line, the Bears have had to make adjustments, removing certain drills from practice and monitoring the progress of players in quarantine.
Once a day, the defensive linemen are permitted to do some individual, supervised conditioning work. If any of those players are cleared to play against Arizona State, Wilcox’s staff will try to teach them the game plan quickly.
“The first thing would be to be cleared by our medical team to play,” saidWilcox, who hopes to learn moreWednesday about the status of Saturday’s game. “Their conditioning would be taken into account. More practices, the better. All of those guys want to practice right now. They’d like to be with us, but they’re just not able to be. They’re looking for answers during quarantine.
“They’re trying to do their best to keep up their condition the best they can if we get information that leads to them being back with us.”
The uncertainty hanging over the program has caused plenty of frustration forWilcox’s staff. Cal has followed publichealth guidelines and overhauled its practice plans to limit contact, only for a single positive test to threaten to derail the season.
Though the Pac12 introduced a daily testing plan for teams, it did not establish conferencewide guidelines for contacttracing and quarantine protocols. Every school has a different process to handle positive tests. Unlike many other Pac12 programs, where university health officials oversee the quarantine process, Cal must follow the City of Berkeley’s lead.
Wilcox voiced some frustration with the communication between his team and city health officials, saying, “We’re just looking for some feedback on how to do it better. That’s what we’re looking for. There’s some guys in quarantine that are not sure why they’re in quarantine. We’re trying to get them some answers.”
It’s worth wondering: If one positive test forced Cal to cancel its season opener againstWashington and raised doubts about its ability to play Arizona State, could the Bears be at risk of losing their season? Including the Arizona State game, Cal has only five games on the schedule before the Pac12 championship game participants are determined.
One possibility is that, to avoid having to deal with Berkeley Public Health, the team temporarily could move to an area where it could have greater say in its contacttracing and quarantine process. Asked Tuesday about that option, Wilcox said, “You’d have to ask the administration.
“That’s not a discussion or a decision I would make, but here’s what I would tell you: The football program will do anything, whether it’s practice protocol or meeting protocol, whatever we need to do in order to play. … We recognize the significance of the virus. This is not minimizing the virus. What we want to know is how we can be better so that these things don’t happen.”
This much is certain: If Cal is able to play Arizona State on Saturday, it’ll face a steep challenge. Not only are the Sun Devils, who held a 13point lead over No. 20 USC on Saturday before falling 2827, a formidable opponent, but unlike the Bears, Arizona State hasn’t had to practice without a position group.
“You miss a position group, it’s obvious,” Wilcox said. “We do the best we can, and the players are doing a nice job with it.”