The national championship game remains on as scheduled for Monday and both teams are proceeding forward with their travel plans, having now completed their final rounds of pregame COVID-19 testing.
Despite reports earlier this week that a postponement of the game had been discussed due to COVID-19 cases at Ohio State, the final game of the 2020 college football season is set to be played on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Alabama completed its final round of COVID-19 testing on Friday, athletic director Greg Byrne confirmed in a tweet, and is “good to go” for Monday's game. The Crimson Tide arrived in Miami on Friday night.
Welcome to the 305, @AlabamaFTBL #CFBPlayoff x #RollTide pic.twitter.com/Fd0aaoq9Hb
— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) January 9, 2021
An Ohio State spokesperson confirmed Friday afternoon that the Buckeyes have also completed their final round of pregame COVID-19 testing. The team is scheduled to arrive in Miami at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
LETS #GoBuckeyes! pic.twitter.com/8H9rcq5HhP
— gene smith (@OSU_AD) January 8, 2021
“As I have said all week, the game is on,” College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock said Friday, per ESPN's Heather Dinich. “Nothing has changed. Alabama's team will be traveling to Miami tonight and Ohio State's guys will be arriving tomorrow. We are looking forward to a great night for college football.”
Ohio State does not confirm when players test positive for COVID-19, and will not release its list of unavailable players for the national championship game until Monday night. Day said Thursday, however, that the Buckeyes would have “plenty of players” available, though he acknowledged that the team was continuing to deal with “a new set of challenges this week.”
“Well, any time you deal with that and you lose people, it is a gut punch,” Day said Thursday. “But it's not something that we're not used to. We've played games with the majority of our offensive line out. We played the Big Ten Championship game without our top receivers, or some of our top receivers (Chris Olave and Jaxon Smith-Njigba). We've had starters all over the place down at different times, and we've found ways to work through it. It's just been the way it is.”
