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Football: Ragin’ Cajuns have a return date for football playersTim Buckley, The Advertiser, May 29, 2020 Click here – Lift your spirits and take a look at UL’s athletic fields as seen from the air through footage from Lafayette photography and videography company Viznu. Lafayette Daily Advertiser The Ragin’ Cajuns soon can come back. UL plans to allow return its football players to campus for voluntary training workouts beginning June 8, Cajuns athletic director Bryan Maggard told The Daily Advertiser on Thursday afternoon. They and all of UL’s other student-athletes have been banned from practice, competition and workout facilities since mid-March due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that already has claimed more than 100,000 American lives. In-person academic coursework was shut down as well as the university joined most others across the country in transitioning to virtual on-line instruction. Maggard indicated the plan still requires university approval, which he said should come “very soon from campus leadership.” Louisiana coronavirus update: Fewer Acadiana cases, teachers fear for jobs, business aid
According to the plan, if approved, men’s and women’s basketball players, volleyball players and cross-country runners will be permitted to return to train and work out on July 1. UL’s scholarship football players can return all at once, not in small-group phases as some programs elsewhere in the country are doing. Maggard said the program’s athletic training staff will conduct “telephone questionnaire screenings and communications with those student-athletes to determine if students have had any level of exposure to the virus.”
The telephone screening for the football players will take place prior to the June 8 return date, according to Maggard. More: Cajuns athletic director’s world flipped by coronavirus “If they’re coming back from hot spots,” he said, “we’ll have safety protocols in place for anybody we think might need some either additional screening, testing or timing … or if anybody is symptomatic.” It has not yet been determined if any additional testing beyond that which occurs prior to return will take place at various times before the start of the season, according to Maggard. It also is not known when actual full team practices will be permitted. The Cajuns currently are scheduled to open their 2020 season Sept. 5 against McNeese at Cajun Field, although it remains to be seen if the virus will allow the season to start on time. Coach Billy Napier’s Cajuns are coming off an 11-3 season which they capped by beating Miami (Ohio) in the LendingTree Bowl. UL also does not yet know if fans will be permitted at Cajun Field if, or when, games are held there this year. Rebuilding America: UL plan is to prepare for fans Related: UL’s Napier has a coronavirus message for the Cajuns More: A day in UL coach Napier’s new life opens with school Maggard additionally said “no determination” has been made on whether any antibody testing for the virus will be conducted. Antibody tests check the blood for prior infection. “Any testing, at least as now, that we’ve discussed centers primarily around just testing for the (current presence of) the virus itself,” Maggard said. Maggard also said he knew of no one within the Cajun athletics family – football, or otherwise – who already has tested positive for the virus, and that “we hope to keep it that way.”
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