STARKVILLE — Mississippi State football’s leadership is preaching responsibility.
With fall camp enduring amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, senior defensive end Kobe Jones and his fellow upperclassmen have been largely bubbled off to the general public throughout voluntary in-person workouts this summer. But with classes resuming Monday at MSU and students largely back on campus, the football team is now at greater chance of infection despite the best efforts of administrators and thus forces more day-to-day decision making on players.
“Around the team we’re emphasizing to kind of set the standard in society, around the community, in Starkville,” Jones said. “Like wearing masks, taking safety precautions, keeping our hands clean and things like that. And on top of that, I feel like we do feel safer at work.”
Siphoned off from the normal pleasures college students enjoy, the Bulldogs have undergone persistent COVID-19 testing throughout the offseason and are slated to receive three tests per week according to Southeastern Conference guidelines should the season actually kick off.
Given the isolation this fall has brought, coupled with the temptations that come with living on or near a college campus, players are getting increasingly boring, albeit with a purpose, in their everyday lives.
Senior linebacker Erroll Thompson, who returned to MSU despite testing the NFL Draft waters this spring, said he and Jones have spent ample time on the phone in between games of Madden each night.
Echoing Thompson’s sentiments, junior receiver Austin Williams, who’s enrolled in MSU’s online MBA program, said his life has been made easier given his virtual class setting.
That said, with the chaos that ensues with undergrads returning to campuses in the fall, both conceded the team’s task of staying out of populated areas and ensuring their safety has been made harder given the addition of roughly 20,000 new Starkvillians from all corners of the country.
Thompson, a captain on last year’s squad, noted he, Jones, Stanford graduate transfer K.J. Costello, senior receiver Osirus Mitchell and sophomore cornerback Martin Emerson have been among the more outspoken leaders in emphasizing decision-making to underclassmen.
“We’re trying to have a football season and I’m not trying to jeopardize that myself,” Thompson said.
“We’ve been emphasizing being safe, staying smart when you’re away from here,” he added later. “Every day we’re talking to each other about being safe and watching who you’re surrounding yourself with, washing your hands and just taking all the necessary steps to be smart.”
Throughout the summer, MSU has kept any outbreaks or COVID-19 concerns relatively private in regard to the football program. But with images surfacing around college campuses, such as one captured this week with numerous Alabama undergrads throughout the bar district in Tuscaloosa that circulated on social media in recent days, the disregard for social distancing has drawn the ire of prominent figures throughout the SEC — including Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
“I think democracy is great and I think people that have all these freedoms, I think that’s all great,” Saban said in his Monday press conference. “But I think there’s one thing that is probably a common denominator and that’s that people have great moral integrity in the decisions they make. I’m not criticizing here but a lot of people have asked that we wear masks when we’re in public, when we’re in crowds, when we’re in large groups of people, that we keep social distance and I don’t think they’re doing that just for the heck of it.”
Locally, a COVID-19 outbreak at Mississippi University for Women was linked to the Cotton District just off MSU’s campus according to State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs. And while students are continuing in compromising behavior nationwide, those spending their days at the Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex this fall see the situation in simple terms.
“In general, big picture, it’s definitely tougher,” Williams said of maintaining distance from normal college life. “You’ve got to make some more conscious decisions not to put yourself in crowded areas or whatever it may be. It’s different, but it’s a sacrifice. I mean, what do you want to do? Do you want to play ball or go do those other things? It’s not really much of a decision for me.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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