The Wisconsin football team is inching closer to a return to Big Ten action against the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor on Saturday. The Badgers began their regular game week preparations Monday morning. The team will practice each day this week and continue to monitor the program’s COVID-19 testing results closely to determine the team’s activities moving forward.
The football program currently has five active COVID-19 cases, two student-athletes and three staff members. Since Nov. 2, one staff member and one student-athlete have bested positive. Five of the last six days have yielded no positive cases.
“We had no new positives on Tuesday and Wednesday which was a great sign,” UW Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez said. “That’s when we started thinking Friday could be a day we could get the team together to start doing things with an eye towards having a regular practice week. So we were cautious on Friday and Saturday, split guys into groups, and just did conditioning. The team then got together and held its regular Monday practice this morning.
“We feel confident that we have a handle on the situation and are excited to play this week at Michigan. As we have done throughout, we will continue to monitor our testing results and base our decision on those results.”
The Badger football team first paused team activities on Oct. 28 and saw games at Nebraska (Oct. 31) and at home against Purdue (Nov. 7) canceled.