Ohio State Buckeyes: Players and coaches making sacrifices to avoid COVID-19

“It’s very difficult because for those of us who have school-aged children at home, it’s very, very difficult and we have to make sacrifices,” Day said Friday. “Some of us are not sleeping in our homes, and it’s not easy.”

Ohio State began regularly testing players and staff members who are exposed to players when voluntary workouts resumed in June, but the regimen changed this week with implementation of what the Big Ten is calling “Return to Competition testing.”

As of Wednesday, all Big Ten players and staff personnel in “close-contact sports” such as football were to be administered rapid antigen tests prior to every practice and game.

Positive tests are then to be confirmed by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, the type that is most prevalent in public testing across the state and country. PCR tests are considered the most accurate but take longer to process and are more expensive to conduct.

A confirmed positive test will result in a player being sidelined for at least 21 days and undergoing extensive testing for heart inflammation, so even a player who is asymptomatic faces missing multiple games if he registers a positive test.

Day said the testing regimen and other protocols in place to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, including wearing masks and maintaining social distance when possible, creates a feeling of safety within the Ohio State football facility, but that goes away when venturing out into the rest of the world.

“With the daily test that we’re going through, we know there’s 170 people that test daily that are clean,” Day said. “That’s a great feeling to know in this building when you’re around our bubble right here you’re good, but once you leave here, everything changes. And honestly it’s scary because it can ruin your whole season just like that one day with one exposure.”

Therefore Day and his staff have continued to emphasize the importance of mitigation practices and avoiding COVID protocol fatigue.

“I think sometimes the coaches and the players look at us like, ‘Coach, I know we have to be smart,’ but if you get tired of it, you take a deep breath, it’ll get you real fast.”

As far as home life, Day said each coach is handling their situation in their own way.

“At home, yeah we try to do as much as we can about being outside and socially distancing and still trying to figure it all out,” Day said. “My family, we’re still trying to figure this part of it out. It’s all new to us. It’s major challenge but we’re working through it, and then trying to figure out what’s best but like you said right now it’s kind of more outside and, you know, even when I go in the house I’m wearing a mask and then I’m trying to figure all that part of it out.”

Day added that balancing preparation for the season opener against Nebraska on Oct. 24 and staying healthy is an hourly conversation.

On top of virus-prevention protocols, that includes deciding how much full-contact practice time to conduct.

The next time the Buckeyes are scheduled to go full-contact — meaning tackling to the ground — is Saturday in a practice at Ohio Stadium.

“We’ll have an opportunity to bring people to the ground there, and you got to get that work in real soon, probably by the middle of next week,” "Day said. You’ve got to have a lot of that taking-to-the-ground behind you so that as you get closer to the first game you’re keeping guys healthy.

“But the only way to get ready to play football is to play football. And if you have a whole preseason to get ready, that’s one thing, but this is unique so we’re going to have to tackle, we’re going to have to really work at that and figure out creative ways to get our guys ready to play because.”

Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields confirmed safety has been stressed by the coaching staff to the players and expressed no complaints.

“Coach Day is constantly reminding us that we should stay socially distant and try to stay away from as many people as possible,” said Fields, who is passing much of his time at his apparent watching movies and hanging out with his 1-year-old Irish bulldog Uno. "(Day) also said the other day the closer it gets to the season, the more risk you have, so I think the team understands that, and I don’t think it’s that big of a sacrifice to this team because I think everybody on the team is committed to playing this season.

“We all want to do well, so we have to first take care of ourselves and make sure we stay COVID-free.”