Louisville vs. Virginia Rescheduled Due to Cardinals' Positive COVID-19 Tests

Saturday's Atlantic Coast Conference game between Louisville and Virginia has been pushed back by a week because of positive tests and quarantining within the Cardinals program, according to a statement from the ACC.

The two teams are now scheduled to play Nov. 14.

Louisville announced that 10 players and five staff members tested positive, with five athletes and two staffers quarantining as a result of contact tracing. Louisville athletic director Vince Tyra told reporters that everyone affected is experiencing "mild or less symptoms."

Per ACC guidelines, players identified through contact tracing must spend 14 days in quarantine before they can return to the team, while players who return a positive test must quarantine for 10 days from when their symptoms start and must be recovered—without a fever, no fever-reducing medicines and improved respiratory symptoms—for one day before they return.

Cameron Teague Robinson of the Louisville Courier Journal reported that the Cardinals played last week's game against Virginia Tech with nine players sidelined because of "coronavirus-related issues," including eight defensive players. The Cardinals had five active defensive linemen in the 42-35 loss.

Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield said the team had discussed postponing the Virginia Tech game but decided to play after evaluating the number of players available:

"It comes down to 'Do you have enough players at a certain position?' And I've heard this from several schools throughout the country whenever games have been canceled. If you don't have enough players at a certain position, you can't play. Particularly, O-line and D-line are really those spots. You just can't go manufacture big guys to put in there. Either you have them, or you don't. So we looked at the numbers defensive line-wise to say 'Can we play?' and we had enough. We had five. And we said we'll go out and play. You just cross your fingers that nobody gets dinged out there during the game, and we're able to finish the game with all those guys, because then it becomes player safety. So we did not reach that number where we didn't think it was not safe for those guys to go play."

The ACC structured its 11-game season to span at least 13 weeks, with each team holding two dates open.