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Texas A&M Head Coach Jimbo Fisher opened his press conference on Monday by stating that Aggie’s sophomore security Ask Richardson did not travel with the team for Saturday’s game with South Carolina due to a positive COVID-19 test. Further, he noted that there were two other positive COVID-19 cases under the program that were discovered after the team returned from Colombia have been retested. Accordingly, the Aggies went out of business in person today and met via zoom to discuss the film and other issues of the 48-3 win over the Gamecocks.
However, that was not the end of the story.
Today, sports director A&M Ross bjork told ESPN reporter Heather Dinich that there were more than a dozen players who will be sidelined as per Southeastern Conference guidelines for contract tracing for 14 days. That would get them out of the Aggies’ game with Tennessee this coming weekend as well as the A&M contest with Ole Miss the following Saturday.
“It’s not like an epidemic, it’s just a contact tracing”, Bjork said to Dinich. “The level of concern isn’t that we have a bunch of positive cases, you just don’t have the players because of your contact tracing.”
In contrast, the conference guidelines state that Richardson must be in quarantine for ten days after testing positive and cannot return until he has two negative tests.
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League rules on COVID-19 also state that A&M must be able to field a roster of 53 active stock players. including at least seven offensive linemen, a quarterback and four defensive linemen and it has been reported to Gigem247 that perhaps a few of the players affected are walkers. The Aggies were just short of 85 stock players when they started fall camp in August and A&M has already had a number of players retiring for the 2020 season, including newbies. Jhamon Ausbon and Anthony hines as well as scholarship holders James foster, Blades of Elijah, and Derrick tucker. In addition, several players such as tight ends Baylor cupp and Blake smith and wide Camron Buckley and Caleb chapman were lost for the season and Fisher today announced that the defensive end Micheal Clemons has had ankle surgery and will miss an unknown amount of time. However, even with these losses, A&M would still be above the 53 stock market threshold.
Other games that were postponed like the Florida-LSU contest a few weeks ago will be caught up on December 12, as will the Auburn contest with the State of Mississippi. The Aggies could consider a similar postponement when it comes to their game with Tennessee or even the Ole Miss pageant the following week.
GigEm247 will continue to provide the latest developments.
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