The top ranked team in college football has a COVID crisis threatening to derail their season.
According to James Madison athletic director Jeff Bourne, the campus has reported 90 active COVID-19 cases, including ten new positive cases yesterday. Greg Madia was on the media call with Bourne and provided updates.
Among the football team, Bourne adds that the team has 28 players that have either tested positive, or are currently quarantined. That led to last weekend's game against William & Mary to be postponed.
Bourne adds that the belief is that the outbreak can be traced back to the dorms on campus, and the virus then spread to the team from there.
The hopes for the program is that they can slow the spread on the team by the action they took immediately, then return to work outs later this week, and resume practice next week before returning to action the 27th when they're scheduled to play William & Mary.
Coincidentally, the Dukes schedule had William & Mary and Richmond the next two weekends at home, but since they had a home-and-home agreement with them they'll just pick up the games the 27th and April 3rd on the road instead before closing out the season at Elon.
JMU is sitting at 3-0 heading into the pause, and sits atop the FCS rankings for the third straight week, despite not playing last week.
Meanwhile, North Dakota is sitting at 4-0 and hold the #2 spot with some impressive performances, and Weber State (2-0) just beat a top 25 program last weekend in UC-Davis and Southern Illinois has knocked off then-#1 NDSU (who is now #4 nationally) and followed that up with a tight 17-16 win over UNI last weekend to get to the #5 spot at 4-1.
How the FCS level shakes out during this unique spring season is going to be an interesting thing to keep an eye on, and we'll have continuing coverage of it each week.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.