The ACC announced Wednesday that No. 7 Notre Dame's game at Wake Forest, originally scheduled for Saturday, will be played Dec. 12 after Notre Dame paused football-related activities this week after several players tested positive for COVID-19. The new date for the game falls on the scheduled date of the ACC Championship Game, but the league designed the schedule with the flexibility to move the league title game back a week to Dec. 19 if necessary.
Ninety-four COVID-19 tests were administered to football players at Notre Dame on Monday with seven positive tests, per a release from the school. Over the past two weeks, 13 Notre Dame players have been put in isolation with 10 in quarantine while dealing with the coronavirus.
"With student-athlete health and safety our primary focus, we will continue to follow our prevention protocols and ongoing testing procedures," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. "We managed an increase in positivity rates in August, and the players handled it wonderfully.
"We knew COVID would present challenges throughout the season, and we'll always put student-athlete health and safety at the forefront of our decision making. We look forward to resuming team activities and getting back on the playing field."
Wake Forest's game against Campbell, originally scheduled for Friday, Oct. 9 has been moved up to Oct. 2. That will keep the Demon Deacons from going two straight weeks without a game as they were originally scheduled to be off next week.
The Notre Dame-Wake Forest game is the fourth ACC contest that has been postponed or canceled due to COVID-19. In all, nearly 20 FBS games have been postponed or canceled due to COVID-19 and contact tracing.
The game was to be the first ACC road contest for the Irish, who are in the conference this season due to the chaos caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Notre Dame was originally supposed to play the Demon Deacons at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, but the game was later moved to Wake Forest's Truist Field in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
