Syracuse Football: Orange hoping for exemption from NY travel quarantine
By Neil Adler
Syracuse football has five road contests in its 2020 campaign, and the NY governor’s travel quarantine is something that the Orange will have to sort out.
Syracuse football is asking for an exemption to the travel quarantine issued by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for student-athletes and team staff members, according to a report.
Nate Mink of Syracuse.com writes in an article that ‘Cuse Athletics Director John Wildhack is hopeful that the Orange may “piggyback” off of language in Cuomo’s order for professional sports so that SU players and staff personnel don’t have to quarantine for two weeks when they return to New York after traveling to other states for games.
As part of the recently unveiled 2020 schedule for Syracuse football issued by the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Orange will play 10 league contests, with half of them road encounters at Clemson, Notre Dame, Louisville, North Carolina and Pittsburgh.
The ‘Cuse is also expected to suit up for one non-conference clash, in New York state, with Liberty the first option at this juncture. The ACC, by the way, has also released league-wide testing protocols and other safety measures for the conference’s 15 members amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Cuomo’s order, per Mink, says that anyone who has traveled for more than 24 hours to another state deemed to have a high rate of new Covid-19 cases must quarantine for 14 days after coming back to New York. Multiple states in which Syracuse football would travel to for its 2020 road match-ups are included on Cuomo’s list, according to Mink’s story.
"Without an exemption, the Syracuse.com piece says, “the school would have to make drastic changes to its travel schedule and attempt to fly in and out of states such as South Carolina, North Carolina and Indiana the same day as the game.”"
The Orange, per Mink, is likely to drastically decrease the size of its travel party for football bouts, and the ‘Cuse could implement a “shelter-in-place quarantine” for student-athletes, coaches, team staff members and athletics-department personnel at the squad’s hotel when on the road.
Teri Weaver of Syracuse.com reported on Saturday afternoon that Cuomo says if the Orange and its football foes are able to “do quick coronavirus testing this fall, then travel to and from states with rising caseloads should not be a problem,” according to the article.
"Weaver added in her piece: “The governor indicated that if the schools’ testing systems worked well, then players might not have to abide by a 14-day quarantine required for people returning to New York from states with rising virus caseloads.”"