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[quote=Anonymous]Boy, I bet Notre Dame moms and dads just can't wait to welcome junior home with open arms at Thanksgiving.

NYT: Trading Blame and Worry, Notre Dame Grapples With Celebration’s Fallout

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/sports/ncaafootball/notre-dame-fans-clemson.html?referringSource=articleShare

As soon as the final whistle blew, signaling that last-gasp laterals would not prevent the Notre Dame football team from its biggest win in a generation — a 47-40 double-overtime defeat of top-ranked Clemson on Saturday night — a can’t-look-away scene unfolded at Notre Dame Stadium.

Thousands of students leapt over brick walls, dashed past overwhelmed security guards and stormed the field, gleefully mobbing the Notre Dame players and one another. They reveled for more than 15 minutes, ignoring announcements to retreat.

In normal times, a scene like this is a rite of college football. But these are not normal times.

[...]
 
Mark Fox, the county’s deputy health director, who since August has advised the university’s approach to the pandemic, watched students pour over the wall from a perch near the top of the stadium. He could not recall any public-address warnings until after they were on the field.

“I was sick to my stomach,” Fox said. “I felt really ineffective as a public health person. I felt like I was wringing my hands and asking the woulda, shoulda, coulda questions, and that’s an uncomfortable place to be.”

He added: “If you’re confident going in and anticipating a win, this should have been part of the anticipation package. We talked about how the messaging could have been better. Having riot police might have been the only thing we could have done to keep them off the field. In hindsight, is there anything that could have been or should have been done? Yeah, probably so.”

[...]

Eileen Hunt Botting, a Notre Dame political science professor, said the university had lost its moral compass in recent weeks. She said that with cases surging, extensive restrictions and the recent death of two freshmen in a car accident, football was held out as a carrot to a reeling student body. That students rushed the field should have surprised no one.

“I find this so ethically troubling,” Hunt Botting said. “Notre Dame set the students up exactly for what they’re not supposed to do. Father Jenkins is clearly complicit in setting our students up for failure.”

How the virus might have spread on Saturday night will be unclear for days or weeks. Fox, the public health official, said it might be difficult to trace new cases to the crush of students. He was somewhat heartened that many wore masks as they poured onto the field.

“But a mask alone in that situation doesn’t offer a lot of protection,” he said. “I’ve got to assume there were 5,000 or 6,000 kids on the field, and even though there were some pretty remarkable efforts to limit the number of students who were positive, I’ve got to assume there are some. Because of the shouting and hugging and the close proximity, there will be other infections stemming from that.”
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