Gundy Says Cowboys’ Ramping Up Protocols to Try to Get Fiesta Bowl Played

Published by admin
December 27, 2021

COVID-19 has had an unfortunate impact on the bowl season thus far, as teams have had to pull out and games have had to be canceled.

Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said Monday that his team is back into the full COVID protocols that they were in last season in hopes Saturday’s Fiesta Bowl against Notre Dame doesn’t have a similar fate to a few others around the country. Gundy said his team has had “a few” positive cases over the past few days. He said he anticipates there will probably be a few more positive cases within the team over the next few days. But for the most part, the Cowboys are healthy.

“We’re gonna play this game unless we can’t find 11 players,” Gundy said. “We are masked up in meetings. We’re masked on buses. Our team meetings are outside. They’re not in the facility. We moved them out to the tennis courts to spread everybody out. We’re doing the best we can. Up to this point, we’ve been very fortunate. Our medical staff has given us good information. Our players understand the importance of trying to be as cautious as possible.”

Gundy talked about some of the difficulties balancing the players enjoying the bowl experience while still avoiding the virus. He said the team is going to the Phoenix Suns game Monday evening but that they will do so wearing masks in the bus and in the arena.

Should OSU or Notre Dame not have enough players to compete, the Fiesta Bowl will try to find an alternate date to play the game within a week of Saturday. If no date can work, the game would be ruled a no-contest.

“We are 100% fully committed to playing this game,” Gundy said. “And we want nothing more to be as healthy as possible and to play this game, but we also want to be able to enjoy Scottsdale and we want to be able to enjoy the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl. We are back to full protocol, which is what we had last year. So far we’ve been fortunate. We’ve had good practices, and the large majority of us have been healthy.”

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