The NCAA and the Power 5 are expected to formally announce their plans for testing college athletes and the mandatory quarantine times for athletes that test positive for COVID this fall on Thursday.

But before anything official is announced, Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated as obtained a draft copy of the plans expected to be announced in the coming hours.

According to Sports Illustrated, football players will be required to test for COVID 72 hours before any game. Officials will also be tested, but interestingly, not all coaches will be tested. The coaches that aren’t tested will be required to wear masks on the sidelines, according to the report.

If an athlete tests positive, they must quarantine for 10 days and cannot return until at least three days have passed with any symptoms being present. Any player said to have been in “high risk” contact with an athlete that tests positive, will also have to quarantine for 14 days. That is a mandatory rule.

“High risk” contact is described as being within six feet of someone for 15 minutes or more without wearing a mask.

The report also outlines why a program would be potentially shut down in the fall:

1) lack of ability to isolate new positive cases or quarantine high-contact risk cases on campus; 2) inability to perform weekly testing; 3) campus-wide or local community test rates that are considered unsafe by local public health officials; 4) inability to perform adequate contact tracing; 5) local public health officials state that there is an inability for the hospital infrastructure to accommodate a surge in COVID-related hospitalizations.

These may be some serious hurdles to clear in order to play the upcoming college football season but that’s the reality facing the sport in the coming days and weeks.

You can read the entire Sports Illustrated report here.