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Three Syracuse football players tested positive for the coronavirus on Sept. 23 but tested negative two days later, indicating inconclusive results leading up to Saturday’s delayed game against Georgia Tech, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon said in a press conference Monday.

The players were retested right before Saturday’s home-opener to confirm the negative tests, delaying the game by more than 30 minutes. The county recommended SU retest the players prior to kickoff as a precautionary measure, according to Syracuse.com. All three tests came back negative, and the game resumed, with the Orange prevailing 37-20.

“Think about the timing of this,” McMahon said. “They get tested on Friday before a game. The game is at noon. Not a lot of turn time. The Wednesday results, it’s my understanding that they came back late Friday night … Friday’s results come in Saturday morning. You see a potential false-positive there, so we went and got an additional test.”

At the time of the original kickoff, Syracuse Athletics released a statement that kickoff had been delayed to reconfirm the tests of three players “out of an abundance of caution.” The statement did not explain why the precautionary measure was necessary.

Both Syracuse and Georgia Tech abruptly retreated to their locker rooms shortly before noon on Saturday. Redshirt players remained on SU’s bench, the three rapid tests came back negative and both teams retook the field at 12:27 p.m.

“The first thing that passes my mind is this season right now is just weird,” junior defensive back Trill Williams said postgame.

When asked in a virtual conference whether he’d been given an explanation as to why the game was delayed, Georgia Tech head coach Geoff Collins stared silently into the camera for about 15 seconds, ignoring the question.

Had the rapid retests come back positive, the game may have been canceled.

“I don’t want to talk about hypotheticals,” McMahon said Monday. “But it’s highly likely if you had a positive that close to a game, that game might not have happened. (County Commissioner of Health) Dr. (Indu) Gupta makes that call, not yours truly.”

Published on September 30, 2020 at 12:26 pm

Contact Danny: dremerma@syr.edu | @DannyEmerman