Notre Dame-Wake Forest postponed to Dec. 12

Notre Dame’s away game against Wake Forest, previously scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 26, has been postponed after seven players tested positive for COVID-19 Tuesday. All football activities have been paused until further notice, according to a press release from the Notre Dame football’s PR team.

Ninety-four tests were given to members of the Notre Dame football team Monday, of which seven returned positive results, according to a press release sent to media outlets. There are currently 10 football student-athletes in quarantine and 13 in isolation, the release said.

With regard to football, Notre Dame announced prior to Saturday’s matchup with South Florida that eight players would be out, with the only previously announced one being sophomore safety Kyle Hamilton, who suffered a sprained ankle the previous week against Duke. The Notre Dame PR team released their weekly testing numbers Monday saying that, out of 232 administered, four athletes tested positive for COVID-19 and six more were in quarantine due to contact tracing. None of those ten players competed against South Florida.

Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports then reported the following day that Notre Dame would not be practicing Tuesday. Soon after Notre Dame’s PR team announced that, following 94 tests administered Monday, seven more athletes tested positive. The Irish now have confirmed 13 players in isolation and 10 in quarantine.

Both the Irish and the Demon Deacons have a bye scheduled for Oct. 3, but with a 10-day wait time for athletes who test positive and a 14-day period for those through contact tracing, the lack of practice time likely impacted the feasibility of that option. Brian Kelly previously said in a press conference with the media that it would be a tall order for a team to play a Saturday football game if they were forced to miss Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday practices.

When the ACC first announced the schedule for all teams in August, they built in a scheduling cushion by saying that the ACC Championship game would be played either on Dec. 12 or Dec. 19. Notre Dame's original final regular season game was slated to be against Syracuse on Dec. 5.