Getty Image / Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire
Less than 24 hours before Baylor and Houston were set to play football in Waco, Texas on Saturday afternoon, the game has officially been postponed due to COVID-19 concerns. But according to reports, the concerns don’t involve actual positive tests, instead the postponement decision was made because of contact tracing.
According to Colt Barber of SicEm365, one group of players of a single position were being held out due to COVID concerns despite many of them not testing positive.
“Due to local goverment guidelines, contact tracing, not positive results of conducted COVID-19 tests on football players and staff members, led to the decision to postpone the game. Because of the guidelines in place, multiple Baylor players were set to miss the game as a direct result of contact tracing and not due to positive COVID-19 tests, Barber’s source said.
“Several Baylor players who were set to miss the game did not receive a single positive test, and despite also receiving multiple negative tests in the same time frame, were not allowed to return to team activities because of regulations in place for contact tracing.”
Big 12 teams are required to test athletes three times during game weeks to monitor developing cases.
According to a source, **at least** one Baylor football player who would have missed the game tomorrow against Houston tested negative at least FIVE times in the last 12 days.
Because of contact tracing.
Think about that.
— Colt Barber (@Colt_Barber) September 18, 2020
This marks the second instance for both these programs this season to have games canceled/postponed due to COVID concerns. Baylor was originally set to play Louisiana Tech last weekend while Houston was supposed to play Memphis and after both of those games were postponed, the Cougars and Bears set this game up in quick fashion.
There are now five total games on this weekend’s slate that have been either canceled or postponed due to the virus.