JONESBORO -- Blake Anderson first felt the symptoms of covid-19 just a couple of days after beating Kansas State.
The Arkansas State University coach decided as a precaution not to attend his weekly news conference that following Monday, hoping he had not contracted the virus. The next day, Arkansas State's game with the University of Central Arkansas was postponed due to ASU's inability to safely field a team because of a depleted position group. And on Wednesday, Sept. 16, Anderson tested positive for covid-19.
Thirteen days and two postponed games later, Anderson publicly announced his battle with covid-19 as well as his recovery. Anderson joins Florida State Coach Mike Norvell as the only college football head coaches to announce they have tested positive for covid-19.
"We've dealt with positive cases in the past. This was really the first time we dealt with a lot of guys who actually felt sick, including myself," Anderson said. "I tested positive and ran a fever for 10 days. And I know that's going to take a lot of people by surprise, I didn't announce it like Mike Norvell did, but at the time there were a lot of other things going on and we knew we weren't going to be playing [UCA]."
Anderson said the UCA and Tulsa postponements "had nothing to do with me testing positive." Instead, both games were postponed because of two position groups -- a different one each week -- being hit hard with a combination of positive tests, players showing symptoms and contact tracing.
Anderson said they did not feel comfortable playing the past two Saturdays.
"We're going to try and play every game that we can. If we're safe in terms of roster, if we can safely do that, we're going to play. There's no gamesmanship here," Anderson said. "I don't think any of us -- I hope no one is taking that approach. We're not talking about strategy or what's in the best interest of winning a game. We've got to find a way to win with what we have, and we did that at Kansas State.
"The dominoes just continuing to fall and timing of guys coming out didn't make it possible against UCA, and it was even probably worse in the sense of Tulsa because I thought the particular position was even more critical that you have depth at, and we were going to have none."
ASU has a contingency plan in place if any of its coaches test positive for the virus, including Anderson, with defensive coordinator David Duggan taking over the head coaching duties.
Duggan was prepared to coach the UCA game if it had not been postponed, having served as the interim head coach for the season opener last season after the death of Anderson's wife, Wendy.
"That would be the plan," Duggan said. "We do have an order of this is who we would go to first, and obviously we're very comfortable with everybody. But yeah, every plan is that way now. It's an unusual season.
"It used to be you always had to have two-deep ready with uptempo offense, and you treated your backups as starters. Now you better get everybody ready to play because you just never know on a given week what's going to happen."
Anderson said despite his sickness, Arkansas State has continued its normal practice activities over the past two weeks. The Red Wolves practice all last week despite missing several players, and they expect to be full speed this week in preparation for Saturday's game at Coastal Carolina. Anderson believes the team is finally starting to recover from the virus and nearly has everyone back.
That begs the question: Could his team play today if it had to?
"We could. I don't know the number, and I'm not going to give details, but I'll tell you we're close to full strength at this point," he said. '"The guys that have come out of isolation over the last week or so honestly did really well at practice, all of them feeling much, much better. I feel like we're really at the point where we're coming out of it feeling better than we possibly could have."
Anderson admitted having two weeks off this early in the season isn't the most ideal situation, especially given the big win the team was coming off of in Manhattan, Kan. But he applauded his players and coaches for doing the best they could each week to replicate a game week, even when there wasn't a game to be played.
"It's been different. But I'll be honest, the beginning of each week has started the exact same," offensive coordinator Keith Heckendorf said. "We feel like we're professional game planners right now. Everything you'd normally do on a Sunday and a Monday and a Tuesday preparing, we've done that each week.
"Our kids have handled it great. They haven't blinked, they haven't batted an eye. When you do what we do, you live for Saturdays. Saturday are the fun days. So our kids have been putting in the work preparing -- they just haven't been able to go out and play. To see them to get a chance to go do that this week will be a lot of fun."
Whether Arkansas State will finally return to the field this week is still up in the air -- the Red Wolves and Coastal Carolina will be tested Wednesday, 72 hours before the game.
But everyone is remaining hopeful.
"Third time's the charm," Heckendorf said. "We're going to find out, aren't we?"
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