Tech football game at Baylor postponed

The Louisiana Tech football team has postponed Saturday's scheduled season opener at Baylor due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

“We are obviously very disappointed that we will not be able to open the season this weekend at Baylor,” said Louisiana Tech Director of Athletics Tommy McClelland in a statement released Tuesday night. “However, with the number of recent positive COVID-19 results and contact tracing, it is simply not possible. We would be putting our student-athletes at risk.

“It is obvious that the impact of Hurricane Laura in our community a few weeks ago really sparked our significant increase in numbers. With 95% of our city losing power for days – even up to a week in many areas – our student-athletes were forced to find places to stay and some even had family from south Louisiana that came northward to stay with them. So many things that we were able to control for the month of August became out of our control, and I think the numbers prove that it took its toll. The days leading up to this outbreak, we had a stretch of three weeks with only one positive case. So the protocols we had in place were working prior to Hurricane Laura.”

Baylor and Tech have agreed to monitor dates throughout the season to potentially make up the game.

See Thursday's Ruston Daily Leader for more on this breaking story.