A day after saying that Auburn was “ready to go” as far as his list available for the Citrus Bowl, defensive coordinator Kevin Steele revealed that the Tigers had another positive result on the COVID-19 test.
The last positive result came on Thursday morning, just over 28 hours before Auburn’s launch against Northwestern in Orlando, Florida.
“That’s how it changes fast,” said Steele. “We practice all week. We are ready to get on a plane and we have a positive result, so now we have to adjust ”.
That’s what this past week – and most of 2020, in fact – was about: adjustment. Due to the pandemic, it was a year of change and adaptation in real time – be it spring cancellation, an unusual and virtual off-season or the conference’s flexible 10-game list – Auburn had to make adjustments in much of the past 10 months.
So far, Tigers have done well. They had no games canceled during the regular season, and only one – against the State of Mississippi – was postponed, but that was due to Bulldogs failing to reach the limit for players with available scholarships.
This does not mean that the Auburn season did not go without its own health obstacles. The Tigers had their share of disagreements with the coronavirus, including a break from pre-season training in August, when nine positive cases forced 16 players out of training due to contact tracking protocols. Auburn also had 10 players, including five starters, sacked during the second week of September, after two more positive test results.
In the week of that Mississippi game, Auburn paused practice and had more than a dozen positive cases, including 10 players, with about the same amount being forced to quarantine due to contact tracking protocols. Then, in the week of the Iron Bowl, Auburn reported yet another positive test.
Auburn has not yet reached an inflection point with his squad availability this season, although then coach Gus Malzahn said in November that the Tigers were close enough to have to do the math in the postponed Mississippi State game week. Steele has not provided precise – or even general – figures on the Tigers’ latest rounds of testing since the players reported to campus last weekend, saying on Thursday that he is keeping things “close at hand”. But, listening to Auburn’s interim coach this week, it looks like the show could be more impacted by COVID-19 for the Citrus Bowl than at other times of the season – which shouldn’t be a big surprise, given that the players had two weeks off to go home for the holidays after the regular season ends and six rigorous months on the pseudo-bubble that is the Auburn campus.
“We had guys in and out of practice,” said Steele. “It will be a bit of mixing and matching.”
Steele, and Malzahn before him, praised team doctor Michael Goodlett’s work in helping Auburn meet the challenges of completing a season in the midst of a pandemic. At Goodlett’s request, Auburn won’t even take a look at Camping World Stadium, as he believes it is best to limit the team’s movements before the game, especially with Auburn not traveling to Orlando until midday on Thursday.
“As far as we as a team and team are concerned, I think that every man, player and coach would say that the ship’s captain through COVID, Dr. Goodlett – No. 1, he loves and cares about us and cares for us as if we were a family and, moreover, he is an incredible doctor, very, very intelligent, ”said Steele. “He led us and took all the pressure off us to go through this and was very successful. It looks like he works 18 hours, 20 hours a day. I don’t know when the man sleeps. He has been invaluable in terms of helping us to overcome this. “
Tom Green is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.