East Carolina football postpones season opener against Marshall because of coronavirus
East Carolina football has postponed its Sept. 12 season opener in reaction to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, athletics director Jon Gilbert announced Thursday.
The Pirates were scheduled to open the 2020 season at home against Marshall in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. The two schools are now hoping to reschedule the game for later in the fall, and ECU’s new season opener will be Sept. 26, at home against Central Florida.
“We are disappointed we won’t be able to host Marshall for our season-opener, but our top priority remains the health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches, staff, fans and our community,” Gilbert said in a release, adding that Marshall and its athletics director, Mike Hamrick, have been “tremendous to work with” as they attempt to reschedule.
The delay came four days after ECU, like UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State earlier this month, announced Sunday it would move its undergraduate classes online for the rest of the fall semester.
That decision came after numerous COVID-19 clusters were reported on campus during the first two weeks of the semester. Classes were suspended Monday and Tuesday to allow for an adjustment period, and Wednesday was the school’s first day of fully remote learning.
In its most recent COVID-19 update, ECU said it issued 1,012 coronavirus tests to students during the week of Aug. 16 through 22 and had 262 positive tests. That 25.9 percent positive test rate marked an 18.1 percentage point increase from the Aug. 9 through 15 positive test rate of 7.8 percent. Five employees also tested positive for coronavirus last week for a cumulative total of 267 positive cases last week.
The Pirates, who went 4-8 last season, are now scheduled to open their season on Saturday, Sept. 26, at home against UCF, as announced by the American Athletic Conference on Thursday. All football team activities had already been on pause since Gilbert suspended them indefinitely on Aug. 20.
The ECU-UCF game was one of six schedule changes the AAC announced. The game was originally scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 24, but will be pushed back two days. ECU’s road game against Cincinnati has also been pushed back two days, from Thursday, Nov. 12 to Saturday, Nov. 14.
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 2:48 PM with the headline "East Carolina football postpones season opener against Marshall because of coronavirus."