Southern Miss football won its 1st game with ‘numerous players’ sidelined by COVID-19
When the Southern Miss football team topped North Texas 41-31 on the road Saturday for its first win of the season, the Golden Eagles did it with several key players out because of COVID-19.
USM interim coach Scotty Walden confirmed Monday that the coronavirus played a role in keeping some of his players from making the trip to Denton.
When asked how many of the players were sidelined due to COVID-19 protocol, Walden said, “We had several.”
“I’m not going to give you a number. I’ve got to be careful with confidentiality and things like that,” he said. “With COVID, we had numerous players that were not available for the game. Everybody is battling it. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean everybody is a positive test. You’ve got contact tracing, things of that nature. Our training staff has done an amazing job getting that under control. We (had enough depth) to play the game. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have played.”
Walden said he is confident that everything will fall into place for this Saturday’s 3 p.m. home game against Florida Atlantic.
“I think we’ve got the protocols in place this week, going forward,” he said. “We’re just making sure we’re on top of it. I have no reason to believe that this game is in question on Saturday. We’re going to play.”
The USM depth chart was already thin because seven players chose to opt out of this season and transfer elsewhere.
Walden said Monday that he had 53 scholarship players available for the game at UNT.
“It’s where everybody is now,” he said. “I was talking to (UNT coach Seth Littrell) and he’s dealing with the same issues. You have to do a great job of managing depth and getting guys ready. We had to get several guys ready to play who hadn’t taken many snaps.”
USM star senior receiver Tim Jones has been unavailable for the Golden Eagles (1-3, 1-1 in C-USA) over the last two weeks because of a hamstring issue, and it remains unclear if he will take the field Saturday.
FAU (1-0, 1-0) beat Charlotte 21-17 last week in its season opener after having the team’s first four games canceled because of COVID-19.
Hurricane threat for USM, South Mississippi
While Saturday’s contest may not be under the threat of cancellation due to COVID-19, Tropical Storm Delta may prove problematic.
The storm is forecast to come ashore in southeastern Louisiana on Friday as a Category 2 hurricane and could bring heavy rainfall and wind to South Mississippi.
“I talked to our weather people this morning and they seem to think it’s going to potentially be a lot of rain,” Walden said. “I feel like there’s no immediate threat to talk about canceling the game. It’s something we’ll continue to monitor through the week.”
This story was originally published October 5, 2020 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Southern Miss football won its 1st game with ‘numerous players’ sidelined by COVID-19."
