Breaking News: FIU-Charlotte Game Postponed due to COVID-19 Outbreak in FIU Football Team

Written by: Richard Gibson/ Staff Writer

FIU Football’s matchup against the Charlotte 49ers on Saturday, October 17th has been postponed due to an “increase in COVID-19 positive results within the FIU football program,” according to a statement by FIU Athletics.

“Out of an abundance of caution, all team activities have been paused,” read the statement issued by FIU Athletics today at 9:49 pm.

The news comes five days after head coach Butch Davis said there were 17 false-positive cases of COVID-19 within the team in a press conference after last week’s home opener against Middle Tennessee. 

“We had 17 players that tested false positive,” said Davis. “They ended up having to test three times to get three negatives before the laboratory would tell the conference to tell our medical people that they were not positive, and they did not have coronavirus.”

Maydel Santana, the associate vice president of Media Relations, contradicted Davis’s statement in an email to PantherNOW, saying the number of players that had false-positive tests were less than 10. She also said no players on the team had tested positive last week but that 26 FIU football players have tested positive since the team started organized activities.

Mike Hill, the Director of Athletics for the University of Charlotte, released a statement  to WCNC Charlotte saying, “We will work closely with the conference and FIU to attempt to reschedule this game in December.”

The Panthers have already had four games on their schedule either canceled or postponed due to COVID-19 concerns, including matchups against Central Florida and Old Dominion. It’s currently unknown when the game between FIU and Charlotte will be made up.

This article will be updated as PantherNOW gets more information.