For The Third Week, No Fans Will Attend BYU Football’s Game Against UTSA At LES
Oct 6, 2020, 2:00 PM | Updated: 2:34 pm
PROVO, UT - OCTOBER 14: General view of LaVell Edwards Stadium and the field logo before the game between the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Brigham Young Cougars on October 14, 2016 in Provo Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images)
(Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images)
PROVO, Utah – For the fourth time this season, BYU football will play in front of a stadium with no fans. On Tuesday, BYU announced that no fans would be in attendance at LaVell Edwards Stadium for the Cougars home game against UTSA.
No fans will be in attendance at LaVell Edwards Stadium for #BYU's home game against UTSA this Saturday.#BYUFootball @kslsports
— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) October 6, 2020
No fans at LES for BYU/UTSA
BYU’s athletic department issued the following statement.
BYU Athletics today announced the UTSA-BYU football game on Saturday, Oct. 10, will be played without spectators at LaVell Edwards Stadium. The decision was based on the current moderate (orange) risk COVID-19 designation for Provo and an understanding there will not be a change in the risk designation this week.
With a continued effort to lower the case count in the community and current trends at BYU improving, the university hopes to have fans in the stadium on Oct. 24 versus Texas State.
As of October 5th, the seven-day average for COVID-19 cases in the state of Utah has been at 1,034. Days before BYU’s home opener in September against Troy, Utah Governor Gary Herbert announced a return to the moderate (orange) risk phase for Provo and Orem’s cities. Leaving BYU to announce no fans in the stands at LaVell Edwards Stadium for games against Troy and LA Tech.
Before Governor Herbert’s orange phase mandate, BYU had plans to allow 6,000 fans at LaVell Edwards Stadium for the home-opener with hopes of increasing fan attendance up to 24,000 people over the course of the home schedule.
BYU’s games in 2020 have had zero people in attendance, starting with the Cougars season-opener at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.
“I would like to see our fans there. You know I think it would be fun to have the player’s families and fans represent,” said BYU coach Kalani Sitake when asked about the status of fans in the stands against UTSA on Monday. “But our guys are used to it. We’ll have to just keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve had three games now with no fans, we just got to keep the passion and excitement going.”
BYU is currently 3-0 this season and ranked No. 15 in both the Associated Press and Amway Coaches Top 25 polls. This Saturday’s game against UTSA will kick off at 1:30 p.m. (MDT) and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 and heard on KSL NewsRadio, the over-the-air flagship of the BYU Cougars.
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m., KSL Newsradio). Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.
