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Maryland Football has paused all team-related activities due to an elevated number of COVID-19 cases in the Terrapins’ program, Maryland Athletics announced today. The Ohio State game scheduled for Saturday has been canceled and will not be rescheduled.
Athletics Director Damon Evans and University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines jointly made the decision following a recommendation from university health officials and in consultation with the Big Ten Conference. Over the past seven days, eight football players have tested positive for COVID-19.
“There is nothing more important than the health and well-being of our student-athletes, coaches and staff,” Evans said. “We realize that this news is disappointing to all of the Maryland fans out there who were looking forward to the Terps taking on an outstanding Ohio State team, but the responsible thing for us to do is pause football activities, given the number of positive cases currently in our program.”
Head coach Michael Locksley said the program was “extremely disappointed that we’ll be unable to host Ohio State this Saturday. It was an opportunity that our team was preparing for and excited about. However, we have and always will keep our players, coaches and staff’s safety at the forefront of our decision-making process. We’ll continue to operate as much as we can virtually as we monitor the situation in hopes of returning to play when it’s deemed safe.”
Maryland Athletics Testing Update
Between Sept. 30 and Nov. 10, 1,510 on-campus PCR screening tests have been conducted for student-athletes across all sports. Ten student-athletes tested positive. To date, 5,333 tests have been conducted, with 120 positive results.
As part of the Big Ten Conference protocols, football student-athletes began testing daily on September 30 and men’s and women’s basketball teams began testing daily on Oct. 26. All other student-athletes will continue to be tested weekly. In order to protect the privacy of those student-athletes who test positive, Maryland Athletics will continue to publicly release the aggregate number of positive tests at regular intervals.
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