By Jesse Newell The Kansas City Star
LAWRENCE, Kan. — Kansas football’s home game Saturday against Texas has been postponed because of “KU’s inability to meet the minimum position requirements established by the Big 12 Conference,” KU announced Wednesday.
The game has been moved to Dec. 12. The Jayhawks previously were scheduled to end their season on Dec. 5 at Texas Tech.
KU said the position group affected had “a combination of injuries and contact tracing.”
The athletic department reported, since Nov. 8, that its football program has performed 825 COVID-19 tests, with five coming back positive on various testing days during that period.
This is KU football’s first in-season postponement because of COVID. Coach Les Miles, during Monday’s Big 12 teleconference, had previously said he was optimistic that the Jayhawks would be able to play this weekend’s game.
“We feel pretty good,” Miles said about his team’s COVID status Monday. “We’re going to get some test results back (Monday) I think, but we’ll be able to tell you more in the next day or so.”
Chancellor Douglas Girod previously announced Tuesday that all KU Athletics home events in November would take place without fans in an effort to prevent further virus spread; that includes KU football’s scheduled home game next week against TCU.
Fifteen FBS football games were postponed or canceled because of coronavirus last week, which included Missouri’s home game against Georgia.
