No. 3 Ohio St will be 'shorthanded' for Michigan State

No. 3 Ohio St will be 'shorthanded' for Michigan State COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- No. 3 Ohio State will be ''a little shorthanded'' because of a COVID-19 outbreak but continues to practice ahead of its scheduled game at Michigan State, coach Ryan Day said Thursday. So far, so good, this week for Ohio State, which voluntarily canceled its game at Illinois last week because of a spike in positive tests among its 170 players and staff in Columbus. There were no details on which players might be missing for Saturday's game in East Lansing - the program will issue a list of unavailable players Friday - but Day will for sure be staying at home after a positive test last week. ''It's been a tough, tough week,'' Day said on his weekly radio show, the only media interview of the week for him. ''It's certainly been a frustrating week. But I'm resting comfortably.'' Day will be convalescing at home Saturday, watching the game on TV like everybody else. ''It will probably be the hardest three hours of my life,'' he said. Players and staff will be tested at about 8 p.m. Friday before getting on the plane for a game Ohio State (4-0) must get in to log the minimum of six needed to be eligible for a Big Ten title. That means the Buckeyes also must play next week's regular-season finale against Michigan, which because of positive tests had to suspend football activities and scrap this week's game against Maryland. While the Big Ten requires a minimum of six games for title eligibility, there is no such threshold for the College Football Playoff. Ohio State is No. 4 in that ranking this week. Day said the toughest part for everybody in the program has been all the stopping and starting. ''I just think the emotional toll it takes,'' he said. ''To say just 'It's OK, we're just going to get over it' isn't fair. We've had to just continually get over the disappointments, these stops, these starts. ''To go win a football game at any level, but certainly in college football and at Ohio State, you have to get yourself emotionally ready to play any game. And when those games are taken away, it's hard to create that momentum again.'' Standing in for Day on Saturday will be defensive line coach Larry Johnson, who has been on the staff since 2014. The 68-year-old assistant talked about the challenges of coaching and cajoling players virtually much of the time these days. ''The Zoom is tough,'' Johnson said. ''You can give information, but you can't give a feel of the passion of the information. You want to see guys' eyes and how they react. It's tough to do that when you're showing videotape and talking to the guys (on Zoom). Sometimes I think I'm talking to myself.'' OSU Head Coach Ryan Day, Director of Athletics Gene Smith and team physician Jim Borchers met with reporters today to shed light on the cancellation of the football game with Illinois and the future of the football schedule. According to Borchers, the B1G has two guideline thresholds to determine whether to shut down a program. The first is that a program should have less-than 7.5% positive tests in it’s Tier I population which includes all players, coaches and support personnel. That population numbers 170 in the OSU football program. OSU exceeded the 13-person limit set by this standard. He did not reveal the actual number of positive tests. Borchers also reported that the COVID cases were not in clusters i.e. at certain position groups or within any other specific segment of the Tier 1 population such as coaches, managers, etc. Instead the positives were random throughout the population. As to the future of the remaining schedule which includes Michigan State and Michigan, Smith said that it is too early to tell whether OSU will be able to play those games because there is not yet enough data. If the number of positive cases continues to rise, then those games are in danger of cancellation. If it does not those game could still yet be played. Players who have already tested positive must now undergo a mandatory 10-day isolation and then the return to competition protocol which lasts seven to 10 days. According to Borchers, prior to this outbreak OSU had had zero positive tests. The names of the individuals who tested positive were not divulged due to privacy concerns.