Notre Dame held spring practices in early March at the Irish Athletics Center. South Bend Tribune-USA TODAY NETWORK

Notre Dame claims zero positive coronavirus results in latest round of testing

By Zac Wassink | Last updated 7/7/20

In early June, details surfaced on how Notre Dame planned to isolate football players at the on-campus Morris Inn as the university prepared for a season scheduled to begin in late August amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The school's protocols seem to be working as hoped coming off the July 4 holiday weekend.

On Tuesday, Stadium's Brett McMurphy tweeted that zero of the 103 Notre Dame players tested returned positive results last week. To date, only one player has tested positive, while the school has accumulated 251 negative tests among personnel:

Notre Dame tested 103 football student-athletes for COVID last week, none tested positive. To date, Notre Dame’s student-athletes & coaches/staff have had 251 negative tests & only 1 positive test
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 7, 2020

McMurphy's tweet serves as rare positive news at a time when it seems questionable, at best, that the college football season will begin on time or happen at all.

Less than two weeks after ESPN's Paul Finebaum explained he'd heard it was "very likely" games will be pushed back, Bruce Feldman and Nicole Auerbach of the The Athletic wrote that the Ivy League could cancel its planned campaign and replace it with a conference-only spring schedule on Wednesday.

Virus outbreaks among football programs have been so commonplace that former NFL quarterback and current broadcaster Boomer Esiason suggested coaches are hoping to build "herd immunity" among squad members this summer.

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