The Pitt football program paused all team activities on Thursday afternoon due to COVID related protocols. The team’s game with Georgia Tech was subsequently postponed as well.

Pat Narduzzi addressed the media on Monday for his weekly press conference, per usual. Pitt is scheduled to hold a normal week of practice beginning tomorrow, and the game this Saturday against Virginia Tech is still planned to be played set for a 4 p.m. kickoff at Heinz Field.

Of course, that can all change quickly like what happened late last week.

“Our hopes are, we tested on Sunday, which was yesterday around 1 o’clock, and all of our kids are going through that process now,” Narduzzi said during his press conference. “We have no results from our Sunday test. We will find out where we are, I think that’s important.”

Pitt can’t technically resume activities fully until those results come back later today, but the expectation and message around the program is that the game against the Hokies will be played.

“We expect to play Virginia Tech this weekend,” Narduzzi said bluntly. “That’s it, that’s the expectation.”

The Panthers had been one of the better programs in the country dealing with the pandemic. Pitt had multiple players miss the opening game against Austin Peay back on September 12th, but the results have in Pitt’s favor up until last week.

Pitt has remained diligent dealing with the virus, and Narduzzi said that message will continue to the message to his team this week.

“We expect to play that Virginia Tech game and we hope we’re not let down again. It’ll be up to our team and players on how safe they are out there and we talk constantly about wearing a mask and staying socially distanced, and pretend like everybody’s got it.”

As of Thursday afternoon, Narduzzi held his final media briefing of the week over Zoom and anticipated playing the game. Hours later the team paused football activities and he said it happened that quickly.

Pitt held team meetings over Zoom on Sunday and today. Th facility has been cleaned repeatedly as well and the hope is to welcome the team back fully tomorrow for normal Tuesday practice.

Narduzzi did not specify if one specific position group was hit harder than others. Unlike some other conferences, the ACC does not have a minimum number of players that have to be dressed to play games in accordance to COVID guidelines.

Pitt will look to get back to the field on Saturday after a mostly successful season of avoiding a team outbreak up until last week.

“We talk about earning those games, and so we didn’t earn that one,” Narduzzi said. “We didn’t earn number nine, and to them it’s a loss and you feel like you lost this week. On Saturday I felt like I lost.”