Shane Beamer updates team's health ahead of Duke's Mayo Bowl

As COVID-19 positive case numbers have significantly risen as of late, that has impacted the sports world – just like the coronavirus did all throughout 2020. While there has been multiple college football postseason bowl games cancelled, nearly every team that’s still playing is doing all it can to prevent that from happening to them.

Fortunately for South Carolina, it currently doesn’t have any COVID-19 related issues heading into its Dec. 30 matchup with North Carolina in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. According to head coach Shane Beamer, the Gamecocks had no issues following their first on-site practice in Charlotte, and he said that unvaccinated players would be tested on Tuesday.

Although South Carolina isn’t dealing with any COVID-19 problems, the Gamecocks will be down three non-starters due to suspensions and without one starter who has an ailing family member.

South Carolina (6-6) and North Carolina (6-6) are scheduled to kickoff at 11:30 a.m. ET on Thursday at Bank of America Stadium. ESPN will be carrying the national broadcast.

Nick Saban on Alabama’s COVID-19 protocols, vaccination rate

One team that is doing all it can to prevent COVID-19 from halting their postseason is Alabama, which is currently in Dallas, Texas ahead of its matchup with Cincinnati in the College Football Playoff’s Cotton Bowl semifinal on New Year’s Eve at AT&T Stadium. After arriving in Dallas on Sunday, Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban met with the media and discussed COVID-19 and how his program is handling it.

“I mean, we implemented the masks, the social distancing in meetings with players way back when we started,” Saban said. “So we’re already doing all the protocols that we feel we possibly can. Our team’s all been vaccinated, 92% of our players have also had boosters. But we have encouraged them to use the same practices that we had to use a year ago – whether it’s wearing a mask in meetings, wearing a mask when you’re not in the building, social distancing when we’re in meetings. So if there were some new protocols that would help us be safer, we would certainly implement them, but I think we tried to implement all that we know that has worked in the past.”

The College Football Playoff has announced that any team that isn’t able to play due to COVID-19 related issues will have to forfeit and there will be no postponements, so Alabama is certainly taking every preventative measure it can.

The Crimson Tide – who are ranked No. 1 in the nation – and No. 4 Cincinnati are scheduled to kickoff at 3:30 p.m. ET on Friday at AT&T Stadium on ESPN. Alabama comes in as a 13.5-point favorite, with the over/under set at 58 total points.