Purdue is doing all that it can to get its players vaccinated in advance of the season.
On Thursday, Boilermaker coach Jeff Brohm told GoldandBlack.com that he couldn’t say what percentage of his squad has been vaccinated, but Brohm said that information may be revealed on Friday when he is slated to attend Big Ten media days in Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium. Like all schools, Purdue can’t force its players to get vaccinated, but it can educate them on the benefits. Brohm has been vaccinated.
“I feel like we’ve done a really good job of educating our guys about the vaccine, and the importance of it,” said Brohm. “We’ve had numerous sessions with our team and we brought in doctors to explain their opinion and our doctors here on campus, as well. And we’ve provided access to get the vaccine on campus. We’ve had multiple times where we brought it over to this building (Kozuch Football Performance Complex), as well.”
Last season, when the COVID virus knocked a team out of competition for a week, efforts were made to reschedule games. Whether that will be the case again this fall remains unclear, as Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren provided no definitive answer on the issue when he spoke at Big Ten media days on Thursday. He did say an answer is coming before the start of the season. Earlier this week, the SEC said it won’t postpone games and will consider them forfeits if a team can’t play due to COVID-19.
In all, 13 Big Ten games were canceled in 2020 and ruled no-contests, not counting in the records. Purdue had three games called off: at Wisconsin and at Indiana (twice). Only two schools—Rutgers and Penn State—played all nine scheduled games in the Big Ten in 2020.
“So, we want to do our part to keep our team healthy, as much as we can, and hopefully their families healthy,” said Brohm. “I think we’ve done a pretty good job at this point. We’re continuing to do that every day. Information changes and we try to take it and relay it to our guys, but we want all of them to stay as healthy as they can for this year and beyond.”