Day, Dabo hint at roster availability for Sugar Bowl
NEW ORLEANS –– Both the Ohio State and Clemson rosters or coaching staffs will be impacted by COVID-19 in one way or another ahead of the Sugar Bowl, but even a day before kickoff, the extent of that impact remains uncertain.
However, Buckeye and Tiger head coaches Ryan Day and Dabo Swinney each hinted Thursday at what their rosters may look like come Friday evening, even if one of the two teams still has to make it through more testing.
“Full strength is a floating target right now because there’s guys who come off isolation and then they have protocol to get back on the field,” Day said. “You don’t just play football after not doing anything for 10 days. And so, I think there’s certain levels of return to play, and all those guys who were missing there for the last month are working their way back into it.”
The Buckeyes were without 22 players for the Big Ten Championship Game against Northwestern on Dec. 19, including then-receptions leader Chris Olave, starting linebacker Baron Browning and punter Drue Chrisman.
Since then, the Big Ten has modified its protocol to allow just a 17-day mandated absence for players that have tested positive, shortened four days from the 21-day period that teams followed throughout the Big Ten season.
Olave has been photographed in practice per the team’s social media pages, but the status of some other key pieces is still relatively unknown.
“We are getting a lot of guys back, but to say 100 percent –– it’s different this year,” Day said. “But the good news is they’re working their way back and getting stronger every day.”
On the Tiger side, Clemson will be without offensive coordinator Tony Elliott, who tested positive for COVID-19 this week. Swinney said to “ask him after the game” just how impactful that loss will be for the Tigers, but it might actually be the most glaring absence, player or coach, for Clemson.
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The Tigers will not do any more COVID-19 testing between now and the game, and Swinney said Thursday that not many players were unable to make the trip to Louisiana.
“I think everybody’s here except I think we had two guys that didn’t make the trip, one walk-on and one scholarship player that are just unavailable, but everybody else is here even our injured guys and things like that,” Swinney said.
The Clemson coach didn’t reveal the names of those two players, but missing just one scholarship player figures to be quite a fortunate circumstance for any college football team at the moment.
For Day and the Buckeyes, who still have yet to make the trip to New Orleans, there will still be another round of testing done this morning, and potentially some follow-up PCR testing prior to when Ohio State gets on the plane later on Thursday.
Day did not specifically say the team would be testing the day of the game, but any testing at all at this point is more than what Clemson is doing, as each team is following their own conference protocols.
“I think that’s a unique situation that we don’t have the same protocols going into the game, but I’m not gonna spend time thinking about that, I’m tired of that,” Day said. “As long as the guys are healthy playing in the game, that’s what matters.”
Ohio State will release its status report about an hour before kickoff Friday, which is set for 8 p.m. eastern at the Superdome in New Orleans.