Paul, HIPPA has no bearing on coaches. People have "heard" that HIPPA prevents anyone with knowledge of a person's health from disclosing that information. That is incorrect. The Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act restricts health care providers, health insurance companies, health care facilities, and employees of all of those from discussing private medical information. There are exceptions, one of which is if the patient makes a public comment about his condition, the restricted folks can discuss the person's health to that extent. Since that is next to impossible, health professionals tend to be overly cautious and avoid those talks completely. A head coach is not a medical professional.

This Bama fan was relieved when that answer was a hard "no." Good game yesterday; y'all had me worried for quite a while. I think both teams learned a lot from each other. The teams that come next are in for rigorous games when they play against UGA or UA. Both of our teams just improved their weakest points.

Sure, go with a coach who preaches and tweets about virtues and gets caught with one hand on his knob and the other calling hookers—with his school-issued cell phone. Nevermind that 15 of 21 NCAA violations on his watch were Level 1 — the most severe type, including staffers fixing ACT scores to qualify recruits and boosters who allowed recruits access to hunt on private land. Do not forget Ole Miss knew the NCAA caught them and self-imposed a bowl ban in 2017. NCAA imposed an additional bowl ban in 2018, added two years to an ongoing two-year probation, assessed penalties of $179,000, and the NCAA reduced 13 scholarships in addition to the 11 the Rebels voluntarily surrendered. Plus, a large number of the coaching staff received show-cause orders from the NCAA. Then there is the player who received $10K from a booster on the eve of national signing day. We cannot forget the Ole Miss merchandiser who provided free stuff to recruits and players, or the free food and alcohol that bars and eateries gave to players, plus the other $10K given to a player by a booster. I will not bring up the specific controversy that came to light after leaving his high school volleyball coaching job. Yes, this sounds just like the man Auburn needs—if you do not care about the values that the young men will unlearn under his tutelage. Is he a good coach? Who knows? NCAA level-1 violations seem to follow him. Is he an effective coach if he follows the rules and enforces NCAA policies? Maybe Auburn can find out for sure: but, does Auburn want to take a chance on bowl-bans and scholarship reductions if the tiger will not change his stripes?

Per the testing protocol named below, the routine PCR testing includes three tests per week during competition weeks. (Not a test every three days.) A positive PCR test requires three negative tests with 24-hours between testing. SEC MEDICAL GUIDANCE TASK FORCE  REQUIREMENTS FOR COVID-19 MANAGEMENT: FALL SPORTS (Revised: October 12, 2020)  "For high risk sports, PCR surveillance is required weekly during practice and three times weekly during competition periods." "If the 2nd PCR test is negative, the individual should receive two (2) additional PCR tests 24 hours apart administered by PAE. If the individual has three (3) successive negative PCR test, and remains asymptomatic, they may be released from isolation and medically cleared to return to athletics activities only." As of seven minutes ago, UA will not release information on any other tests until the situation resolves itself.