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FAYETTEVILLE — The COVID-19 issues that threatened Arkansas’ game against LSU are lingering into this week.
After playing the Tigers with only 56 available scholarship players a couple of days ago, head coach Sam Pittman indicated Monday afternoon that the Razorbacks will once again be near the 53-man threshold to play Saturday’s scheduled game at Missouri.
“Our numbers are no better than what they were Saturday,” Pittman said. “Obviously we have three tests this week, so no, they’re not any better than what they were.”
Season-ending injuries, opt outs and transfers already had the Razorbacks down 12 scholarship players entering the week. Offensive linemen Beaux Limmer and Noah Gatlin are believed to be dealing with injuries, but the other 15 presumably missed the game because of COVID-19 protocols.
Pittman said those who tested positive for the virus had their results confirmed by a second test, similar to the process he went through after testing positive himself leading up the Florida game.
A positive test requires a 10-day quarantine, so those who tested positive during last Sunday’s round of testing should be eligible to return against Missouri.
Players who were forced to quarantine because of contact tracing, though, must be out 14 days. That would mean missing Saturday’s matchup with the Tigers. Protocols do not allow players, coaches or staff members to test out of contact tracing quarantines.
The Razorbacks had another round of testing Sunday following the LSU game, plus have two more scheduled Tuesday and Thursday this week. The results of those will likely dictate whether or not they have enough players to play Saturday.
“There's so much going on, man,” Pittman said. “I mean, with the tests, with injuries, concussions, there's so much going on. Can we get a guy or two back? Sure. I think the timeline has been that we could possibly get 1-2 guys back, but then you've got to look into injuries, yesterday's test and all those things.”
Before the season, the SEC established a minimum threshold of at least 53 available scholarship players to play a football game. That number must include at least seven offensive linemen (with at least one center), four defensive linemen and one quarterback.
Although the Razorbacks were without six of their top eight defensive linemen against LSU, they still had nine scholarship players available at that position. They also had nine scholarship offensive linemen and all five scholarship quarterbacks available.
Pittman said their reports to the SEC includes only number of players they’re without - not which specific players are missing - and the conference makes the final call on whether or not to postpone a game.
“We tell them who we have exactly to the number,” Pittman said. “We tell them how many we have at quarterback, how many we have at O-line, how many we have at D-line and how many we have as a total scholarship number and then they make the decision on whether we’re going to play the game or not.”
Arkansas has played all eight of its games as scheduled so far this year, so it has Dec. 12 and 19 as potential makeup dates. That is not the case for Missouri, though.
The Tigers are tentatively scheduled to play Vanderbilt on Dec. 12 and also need to reschedule their game against Georgia.
In addition to allowing Dec. 19 to be a makeup date for teams not playing in the SEC Championship Game, the conference recently announced it could also reshuffle games currently scheduled to maximize the number of games played. However, those decisions must be made by 8 p.m. CT on the Monday of each week.
