SEC INSIDER

No. 10 Florida eyes return to practice after outbreak

Field Level Media

October 21, 2020 at 9:24 am.

The Florida football program, amid an outbreak of COVID-19, will remain on hiatus for at least four more days, coach Dan Mullen said Wednesday.

Mullen spoke to reporters on the weekly SEC coaches call from his home, where he is isolating after testing positive for the virus last week.

He said he expects coaches and players to get back to work on Monday, also revealing another player tested positive. That makes 26 players and two assistant coaches with positive results in the past 10 days, but he said most of them have had just “minor” symptoms.

The No. 10 Gators (2-1) haven’t played since their Oct. 10 loss at Texas A&M — a trip that Mullen surmised led to the outbreak. Their Oct. 17 game against LSU was postponed, as was their game this Saturday against Missouri.

The Florida-Missouri clash was moved to Oct. 31 in Gainesville. The Gators and LSU will play on Dec. 12.

“We’ll take our time getting guys (back) in,” Mullen said. “Obviously health and safety has always been top priority within our program, so it’s not like Monday we don’t act like we think nothing’s happened. We’ll build back up a little bit on Monday into what we’re doing and getting ourselves back on track and ready to go play. I think our guys have handled everything so far this year extremely well. I expect them to handle this the same.”

Mullen said he is “comfortable” with the number of players that will be available next week.

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