According to a report from Joe Giglio at WRALSportsFan.com, the NC State Football program is included in the series of positive COVID-19 test results that caused the university to temporarily suspend all athletics-related activities on Monday.
NC State announced that it had a cluster of 27 positive COVID-19 cases within the athletics department; that can mean a combination of players, coaches and associated staff members. However, one of the clusters identified was located at the on-campus Wolf Village student apartment complex. This housing unit is where freshmen on the NC State football team reside.
While it’s far from the primary concern, this does jeopardize the start date for NC State’s season opener: the Wolfpack are scheduled to open on the road Sept. 12 at Virginia Tech.
Any player that’s come in contact with someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus will need to be quarantined for a minimum of 14 days, per the ACC’s contact tracing guidelines. This could mean no practice for two weeks for football players — with an ACC game in 18 days. That’s an incredibly small gap between quarantine conclusion and a live-action football game.
From the ACC's Medical Advisory Group protocols on contact tracing and 14-day quarantine pic.twitter.com/AIPLyQFlad
— Joe Giglio (@YellowPadStats) August 25, 2020
One possible solution, if necessary: both NC State and Virginia Tech have open weeks on Sept. 26. In theory, NC State could open the 2020 season Sept. 19 against Wake Forest, then play Virginia Tech the following week.
For Virginia Tech, the Hokies would open their season against Virginia on Sept. 19 and play NC State seven days later.