James Franklin: Penn State football had no positive COVID-19 results after 1st week of practice
Penn State football will not be happening this fall due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but it was through no fault of the program. The Nittany Lions had protocols in place that Penn State head coach James Franklin felt were working and said the entire organization — from coaches to players and everyone in between — yielded no positive results after it finished its first week of fall practice earlier this month.
“So many people worked so hard to make it work,” Franklin said to the media in a video conference Wednesday morning. “A lot of people sacrificed a lot of things to allow for the football season to happen. ... The challenge is — you work so hard to create this culture and this chemistry and building this organization that runs like a family. ... We’ve worked to build these habits and now we’re trying to break them all down. ... And it was working. And it was working really well.”
The new information came hours before the athletic department announced one new positive out of 230 new tests among student-athletes conducted from Aug. 10-14, with four results still pending.
The athletic department has conducted 790 COVID-19 tests since student-athletes began returning to campus on June 8 and returned nine positive results.
The first eight positive tests all came in the third round of announced results on July 29.
Neither the sports nor the identities of the individuals to test positive were announced.
Despite the success in preventing exposure to COVID-19, the Nittany Lions will not have an opportunity to take the field as previously scheduled. The program has turned its attention to — and will move forward in pursuit of — a winter season.
Penn State was originally scheduled to kick off its season in just over two weeks.
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 12:24 PM.
