Maryland football pauses team activities; Ohio State game cancelled

The 2020 college football season has been defined by flurries of canceled games and disruptions, and on Wednesday, Maryland came face to face with that reality.

Eight players have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past week, leading the program to pause all team activities and cancel Saturday’s game against No. 3 Ohio State.

“There is nothing more important than the health and well-being of our student-athletes, coaches and staff,” athletic director Damon Evans said in a press release. “We realize that this news is disappointing to all of the Maryland fans out there who were looking forward to the Terps taking on an outstanding Ohio State team, but the responsible thing for us to do is pause football activities, given the number of positive cases currently in our program.”

The game, which was easily the hardest matchup Maryland faced this year, will not be rescheduled due to the tight timeframe of the 2020 Big Ten season.

”We’re obviously extremely disappointed that we’ll be unable to host Ohio State this Saturday,” head coach Mike Locksley said in the release. “It was an opportunity that our team was preparing for and excited about. However, we have and always will keep our players, coaches and staffs safety at the forefront of our decision making process. We’ll continue to operate as much as we can virtually as we monitor the situation in hopes of returning to play when it’s deemed safe.”

The Maryland athletic department has conducted 1,510 PCR screening tests on student-athletes across all sports since Sept 30, now with 10 total testing positive.