San Diego State’s football team is facing a brutal week, with a mumps outbreak ripping through the squad and nearly three dozen players sidelined by illness and injury ahead of their first Pac-12 game against Texas State on Saturday. This isn’t just a few guys feeling under the weather; this is a full-blown crisis, and it’s hitting them hard right before a huge conference opener.
The Virus Hits the Team
This whole nightmare started getting real on Wednesday when Dr. T. Ghosh, the San Diego State Student Health Services Medical Director, dropped a bulletin confirming 14 cases of mumps at the university. And guess what? This isn’t some random campus bug. Ghosh confirmed the outbreak is locked down to a single athletic team, and reports from Kirk Kenney at the San Diego Union-Tribune pointed the finger squarely at the football team. Mumps, for anyone who forgot, is super contagious, causing painful swelling and spreading through close contact like sharing drinks or even just being sneezed on. The scary part? Symptoms can pop up 12 to 25 days after exposure, meaning these new cases aren’t just one-offs; they show the virus has been spreading within the team for a while now. While the university has isolated the infected players and said they’re no longer contagious, the damage is already done.
Roster Devastation Ahead of Game Day
It gets worse. Aztecs head coach Sean Lewis confirmed that almost three dozen players are dealing with injury and illness designations for their Week 5 showdown against the Bobcats. We’re talking 17 players currently listed as flat-out doubtful or out for the game. Can you even imagine that kind of hit to your roster? And if you thought that was bad, get this: the tight end room, *all seven* of them, are listed as either out, doubtful, or questionable. That’s a full position group wiped out. Lewis summed it up perfectly, saying, “The football gods have not really favored us with the injury luck.” He knows his guys are gonna have to step up big time, calling this “a nice storm” they’ve been given. Due to privacy rules, he couldn’t name names, but honestly, the numbers tell the whole story.
So, how do you even prepare for a game when nearly three dozen players are impacted and an entire position group is questionable at best? The Aztecs are set to kick off against Texas State at 9:30 p.m. CT on Saturday. It’s their first-ever Pac-12 game, and they’re walking into it with one arm tied behind their back. You gotta wonder who’s even gonna suit up, and how they’ll manage to get through this absolute chaos. This weekend is going to be a true test of their depth and resilience.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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