The specter of COVID-19 and the looming threat of its impact will hang over the 2020 college football season, and in Pitt’s season opener, the pandemic hit home as seven Panthers were absent from Heinz Field on Saturday when the team hosted Austin Peay.

Pitt announced that seven players would not be in attendance at 3:19 pm Saturday, 41 minutes before the Panthers kicked off against the Governors. The University did not announce which players were affected.

However, there were some notable absences from Pitt’s sidelines. Redshirt senior defensive linemen Rashad Weaver and Keyshon Camp were not present; nor were freshmen Emmanuel Belgrave, Jahvante Royal or Hunter Sellers. Also absent were walk-on specialists Cam Guess and Jared Campbell and walk-on tight end Jake Cortes.

Not surprisingly, Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi didn’t have much to say about the absences in his press conference following the Panthers’ 55-0 blowout victory.

“Obviously we had some guys that didn't play today or were and absent,” Narduzzi said after the game. “I'm not going to talk about those guys. I'm going to talk about the guys that are here. And again you guys know what's going on. You guys know what the climate is.”

Narduzzi didn’t get into specifics, but Weaver seemed to announce his own absence on Twitter earlier in the day.

Saturday’s absences point toward the protocols and procedures Pitt will be following all season - protocols and procedures that will likely lead to absences from future games. For now, Narduzzi hopes the absences will be limited to individual players and not entire games, which has happened elsewhere in the ACC.

Virginia Tech’s season opener against N.C. State was scheduled for Sept. 12 but was pushed back due to an outbreak on the Raleigh campus. Then, on Saturday, the Hokies’ Sept. 19 game against Virginia was postponed because of COVID-19 issues in Blacksburg.

“The process has worked and we got to trust the process, listen to our doctors, and listen to what goes on,” Narduzzi said. “So, again, I can't say there's frustration with the process because there is really no frustration with the process. It's the just waiting for test results and all that to come back that's the hardest thing. But the process is the process. It's pretty simple as far as what we do. It's just the three testing, it's like it becomes a, it becomes a major process. And UPMC and the CDC has put some protocols in that are outstanding and allowing our football team to play safely, and that's the most important thing. If we have got to go out there with 22 players, as long as we have 22 players playing safely, that's the most important thing, because we know the climate out there, we know what's going on.

“When games start getting cancelled and you hear pregame that Virginia Tech has a problem down there, you just kind of look at each other like, ‘Hey, Pitt could be next.’ And we don't want to be next. That was our message to our football team to go out there, tonight, go to your room, put your mask on and do things the right way because everybody's susceptible. Anything can happen, and we want to make sure that doesn't happen to the Pitt Panthers.”