Virginia Tech football: Hokies working on contingency plan due to COVID-19

We already knew the upcoming 2020 season was going to be unlike anything we have ever witnessed. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down college football in some conferences, including the Big Ten and Pac-12.

Thankfully, the ACC decided on a plan to give us college football.

However, there will be issues. As students returned to campus in August, the inevitable happened as cases at each school dramatically increased. That meant the rising numbers of COVID-19 would affect football teams, too.

Virginia Tech is one of those teams.

Since fall camp opened last month, the Hokies have had several players in quarantine. That meant if there was a game that week, those players would be out. It is expected. And not just in Blacksburg.

Head coach Justin Fuente met with the media on Wednesday and expressed as much.

“It’s going to be like that at every position,” Fuente said.

Fuente did admit he and his staff do have a contingency plan in place if numerous players are forced out during a week.

We’ve got probably 10 guys working one side or the other. I’ve thought about doing it on a larger scale, but I don’t see it being useful. There are a handful of guys that I think, in short time, could be trained to help us in an emergency on either side of the ball, and those are the ones we’ve focused on.

This is probably not unique to Virginia Tech. Coaches all across the country are having to go outside-the-box in order to prepare for what will be an unusual season.

Fuente did acknowledge he was happy the opener against N.C. State was moved back two weeks and the Hokies won’t open the season until next Saturday against Virginia.

Regardless, there will be football this fall and that’s reason enough to celebrate.