FAU Athletics has announced that the football program’s first game of the season on the road against Georgia Southern, which was scheduled for this Saturday, has been postponed. 

“Following results of Thursday’s COVID-19 testing, it was determined the Owls would be unable to play Saturday,” a statement from FAU Athletics said. 

Schedule update:

Saturday’s game at Georgia Southern has been postponed. https://t.co/sL5acakYy8

— FAU Football (@FAUFootball) September 18, 2020

According to Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports, the Owls received more positive tests this morning and had an entire position group unavailable to play.

Both FAU and Georgia Southern are working to find a date to play later this season, per the statement given from FAU Athletics. 

Brian White, Vice President & Director of Athletics at FAU, shared his disappointment on Twitter about the postponement but also states that the university will find a safer path so football can be played this season.

Heartbroken for our student-athletes over the postponement of tomorrow’s game.

This pandemic creates challenges for all of us daily. We’ll continue to work diligently toward a safe way for our student-athletes to be able to participate in the sport they love.

— Brian White (@Brian_E_White_) September 18, 2020

Earlier this week, FAU football Head Coach Willie Taggart said that the Owls had multiple positive cases and canceled practice on Tuesday. “We had like 11 positives, more than we’ve ever had [before], which was a little alarming for us,” Taggart said during his press conference on Tuesday.

As of the writing of this article, 120 students and two employees have tested positive for COVID-19 at FAU, and there are currently 53 active cases, which are all students. This information can be found on FAU’s COVID-19 tracker, which is updated every 30 minutes.

FAU Spokesperson Joshua Glanzer said that the active case count “represents the number of current cases that have not been cleared, whereas the cumulative case count represents the total number of campus impact since the fall semester.”

FAU’s next scheduled game is the first home appearance of the season against the University of South Florida on Sept. 26 at 6:30 pm on CBS Sports Network. 

Joseph Acosta is the Managing Editor of the FAU University Press. For more information regarding this story, or any other stories, email at [email protected] or tweet him @acosta32_jp.