Since the Wisconsin Badgers’ 45-7 victory over the Illinois Fighting Illini on Friday thanks to a 248-yard, 5-touchdown performance from redshirt freshman quarterback Graham Mertz the talk hasn’t been about the team and their impressive performance. It’s been about Mertz and third-string quarterback Chase Wolf testing positive for COVID-19, and what it means for the team moving forward.
As outlined a few days ago, Mertz and Wolf will now miss at least 21 days of football activity, that including the team’s contests against Nebraska, Purdue and Michigan.
Related: Who is Danny Vanden Boom, the Badgers’ likely Week 2 starter?
For news on Mertz’s recent confirmed positive test, Chase Wolf’s status and the rest of the program’s test results stay tuned to BadgersWire throughout the week.
What needs to be discussed now, though, is how many more confirmed positive tests are needed for Saturday’s game at Nebraska to be cancelled.
On UW & COVID-19:
-Badgers would need >7.5% of their team to be positive in order for a game to be canceled. Currently have 2 positives (Mertz, Wolf)
-113 players on the full roster so 9 positives this week would put them past the thresholdFrom the B10's COVID protocols: pic.twitter.com/wWaN3X1khz
— Ben Kenney (@benzkenney) October 27, 2020
Full roster+coaches/staff is 146 people.
So 11 positives in total would put them past the threshold
— Ben Kenney (@benzkenney) October 27, 2020
From the Big Ten COVID-19 protocol, the program will need either >5% of tests to be positive or >7.5% of the population to test positive in order for the game to be cancelled.
There are 113 players on the roster and another 33 coaches and staff, so the math boils down to 11 positives in the 146-person population needed for the 7.5% threshold to be met.
The test postivity clause in the protocol is a bit harder to break down, as we don’t know the exact testing regimen. So it’s possible that players and coaches are tested more than once each day, possible that once a player or staff member is confirmed to be positive they don’t receive another test for a few days, or possible that it’s a direct 1:1 ratio of players and tests-per-day.
Because it’s evaluated based on a rolling 7-day period and because we don’t know how many tests are adminstered each day, it’s challenging to directly predict how many positive tests are needed to reach the 5% test positivity threshold.
Again, Mertz and Wolf are the two reported positives at this point in the week. 11 coaches and staff isn’t that great of a number when you consider the constant exposure a football program sees, so it will be an interesting few days to say the least as the team continues to be tested while they prepare for their game on Saturday against Nebraska.