UGA FOOTBALL SEC ANNOUNCES TWO OPPONENTS FOR BULLDOGS

Georgia’s Ron Courson has been on the front lines of the battle to bring sports back despite an unrelenting global pandemic, and he believes it can be done. But he said it can happen only through rigorous testing, vigilant monitoring and the full cooperation of the athletes themselves.

The Bulldogs’ longtime director of sports medicine, who sits on the SEC’s Return to Activity and Medical Guidance Task Force, detailed for reporters Friday what UGA has been doing and will do as plans continue to conduct football and other fall sports. Courson’s briefing came in the wake of the SEC’s unveiling Friday of minimum medical protocols that must be met for competitions to be conducted.

During a 25-minute digital conference call, Courson revealed that Georgia has not had any other athletes or staffers hospitalized since March and that, so far, not one of the Bulldogs’ athletes has “opted out” for the coming season.

“I think we’ve been very fortunate here, but I also think that’s a credit to everybody involved, including our custodians,” Courson said. “Our building-services people have done an awesome job . ... They’re our front-line defense for infection control and put themselves at risk, too.”

The SEC disclosed Friday that it is requiring two COVID-19 tests each week for football players that must be conducted three days and six days before a competition. That will be Sundays and Wednesdays for a Saturday game. They will use a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, which is one in which a DNA swab is taken and sent to the SEC’s designated third party for analysis. That process usually takes 48 hours, Courson said.

Georgia also plans to conduct “rapid diagnostic tests” on all players — in which they can get feedback in 15 minutes — on Fridays before games. The Bulldogs will also have that capability throughout a game weekend.

“The beauty of that is before you get on a plane or a bus, you can do an effective screening and feel as good as you can about your travel party,” Courson said. “We’ll be able to test on the road as well . ... We want to be as thorough as possible.”

The SEC’s task force has been meeting regularly since April to decide how SEC athletics might be able to return to competition in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The league’s presidents voted last week to press on with the football season, but only with a delayed start to Sept. 26 and playing an SEC-only schedule of 10 games.

No decisions have been announced yet about other fall sports returning to competition. Athletes in basketball, soccer, volleyball and cross country have been training on their respective campuses since late June, and Courson said Georgia’s gymnasts joined them on campus this week as well.

“Our health experts have guided us though each stage of preparation for the safe return of activity and, together with the medical staffs embedded within our athletics programs, we will continue to monitor developments around the virus and evolve our plan to meet the health needs of our student-athletes,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement released Friday.

The requirements include testing, procedures for infections and contact tracing, and protocols for quarantine and isolation.