NC State's season opener is moved back

Yahoo! Sports' Pete Thamel first reported that NC State Wolfpack football's original scheduled season opener against Virginia Tech has been moved to Sept. 26, an open date for both teams. It was originally slated for Sept. 12.

The ACC has officially confirmed the news.

"We appreciate the ACC and Virginia Tech working together in partnership to move this game to a mutual open weekend," said NC State director of athletics Boo Corrigan in a prepared statement. "There's no blueprint for what we're all trying to navigate and we are grateful for everyone's collaboration to make this work."

NC State is now expected to begin its season Sept. 19 at home against Wake Forest. The Pack will then embark on three straight road games starting with a trip to Blacksburg followed by Pittsburgh and Virginia.

The potential of the move was first reported by WRAL's Joe Giglio on Tuesday, who along with The Wolfpacker confirmed that at least some of the cases were involved with the football program.

The main issue facing NC State is the ACC’s medical advisory board guidelines for contact tracing, which requires a 14-day quarantine for anyone who is identified to have been associated with a positive case, even if they themselves have not tested positive for the disease.

Jonas Pope of the Raleigh News & Observer reported Monday evening that one of the positive cases surrounding the football program is an unidentified student-trainer, who received his result Sunday. Giglio noted that more than a dozen football players were held out of Saturday’s intrasquad scrimmage due to COVID-19 protocols.

The number of players and staff that could be sent to a two-week quarantine through contract tracing of the positive cases, presumably starting on Monday when NC State paused athletics, would have caused the Wolfpack to run into issues potentially preparing for a contest against Virginia Tech that would have been 17 days away.

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