A COVID-19 outbreak within the Florida International program prompted the Panthers to postpone their scheduled Friday home game against No. 19 Marshall.
FIU posted a statement on its website Tuesday that read, in part, “Due to FIU football’s lack of available scholarship student-athletes, the Oct. 30 game against Marshall will be postponed to a later date.
“The action follows Conference USA COVID-19 guidelines, which require a threshold for the game to be played safely. The shortage is due to quarantining of COVID-19 positive tests and contact tracing, as well as injuries.”
The Panthers got the season off to a late start when the school postponed its full fall sports calendar until late September, citing an “abundance of caution” surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. The scheduled game against Jacksonville State (home opener on Sept. 3) was pushed back to last Friday, when FIU lost 19-10, and a scheduled Sept. 12 contest at UCF was canceled.
FIU (0-3, 0-1 C-USA) subsequently postponed its scheduled Oct. 17 game at Charlotte due to COVID-19 issues.
Both the Charlotte and Marshall games might be made up the first two weekends of December, with the C-USA championship game scheduled for Dec. 18.
Marshall (5-0, 3-0) is coming off a 20-9 home win over Florida Atlantic on Saturday. All five wins have been by double digits.
