Fresno State lost 2 games to COVID last season. What are the chances it happens again?

Fresno State football coach Kalen DeBoer was walking past a meeting room in the Duncan Building the other day when he noticed game tape was playing.

The lights in the room were off, everything was quiet, but the tape was on. So he cracked the door to take a peek and immediately six or seven heads and six or seven sets of eyes turned to look at him. The Bulldogs’ cornerbacks were in there, getting in some extra work on their own after a morning conditioning session and after weights, studying coverages, taking notes, talking it all through.

Football players obviously do what football players do and that’s what struck DeBoer the most, the normalcy of it, because that is one of many things they could not do last season when trying to make it through the 2020 football season in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

But will that degree of normalcy last?

Fresno State as of last week had one of the highest percentages of players in the Mountain West Conference who have had at least one COVID-19 vaccination shot or are fully vaccinated, according to a conference source. But several schools are lagging behind, which could at some point impact the season.

Seven of 12 programs have around 90% of their players vaccinated, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson said on Wednesday at the opening of the conference’s media days. The average across the conference is 73%.

His biggest fear at the moment, he said, is probably complacency with the virus.

“There are so many in this world, in this country that are saying the worst is over, it’s done,” Thompson said. “Doubtful. If you look at today’s news, I don’t know what the number is this afternoon, but this morning it was 79 Olympians that have been disqualified from competition in Tokyo because of positive testing or tracing.”

Health and safety protocols for the season have not been finalized, but vaccinated players in the Mountain West Conference will not be subject to weekly testing, masking, social distancing or contract tracing protocols.

Unvaccinated subject to COVID-19 testing, contact tracing

Unvaccinated players are likely to be required to take three Antigen tests or one PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test per week and will be subject to masking, social distancing and contact tracing protocols. And, unlike last season when the conference invested about $4 million in coronavirus testing, the universities or athletics departments will have to pay for that this season, at their discretion.

The conference will not attempt to reschedule, postpone or cancel games, leaving teams unable to play due to COVID-19 issues with a forfeit.

There will be no minimum roster thresholds teams must meet in order to play.

There also are questions whether a school that can’t play a game would owe their opponent for lost ticket revenue if playing on the road or travel expenses if they’re playing at home, and whether a lost game would cost a school revenue from the conference’s television deal.

“There could be occasions where a team simply cannot travel, will not travel, is not allowed to travel, then we will address the finances at a later date,” Thompson said.

The Bulldogs are in good shape, but they were a year ago before playing at Utah State when Utah was in a state of emergency due to a surge in coronavirus cases and to address overcrowding in hospitals.

The next four weeks were wild. There were days DeBoer had to pull the Bulldogs off the practice field, after test results came back. A couple of position groups were hit hard by contact tracing protocols. They would have to wait for it to get dark to hold some meetings, so that they could set up a big screen in the courtyard of the student-athlete village to show tape in a socially distanced setting.

It’s July, and the Bulldogs still haven’t been able to sit down and eat as a team, every offering just a grab and go.

Fresno State players have high vaccination rate

“The COVID thing was honestly everything,” DeBoer said, of his first season. “Saturdays were the biggest part of football that I was able to be a part of and involved with during the course of the week, because there were so many things happening every single day.”

Fresno State, obviously, was not the only school impacted. The conference ended up canceling 10 scheduled games – six teams including the Bulldogs played six or fewer and Colorado State played only four.

But the push is on to get the vaccination numbers up across the conference.

“We’re getting close,” Thompson said. “We met with the coaches and they’re diligently trying to convince their teams to get vaccinated. It’s the best defense against the virus. When I flew out of Colorado (Tuesday) there was a report that 95% of the hospitalized patients with COVID were unvaccinated, so science is proving vaccination works, regardless of your inclination, there is science behind supporting being vaccinated.

“We’re trying to create a consequential situation. You have a choice. But if you choose not to be vaccinated, there may be consequences.”

This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.