Because of positive COVID-19 cases within the program, the Kansas Jayhawks football team is suspending its voluntary workouts.

Kansas announced Friday that it is suspending voluntary football workouts for 14 days.

“Due to the positives within our own program and the increased cases in our region including our student-athletes’ home communities, we believe all football student-athletes and staff should self-quarantine for 14-days, per KDHE requirements and CDC guidelines,” the Kansas athletic department said in a press release.

There have been 164 student-athletes at Kansas that have been tested for COVID-19, 16 of them have tested positive (12 football players) and 45 are in quarantine.

The football team is the only team at the university that will not be allowed to work out as previously scheduled.

“All other sports with student-athletes that have returned to campus will continue their voluntary workouts at this time,” the Kansas athletic department said. “Should positive tests increase, we will follow recommendations from Kansas Team Health and suspend additional sports activities as needed.”

The Jayhawks are not the only team in the Big 12 who has suspended voluntary football workouts.

The Kansas State football team initially suspended its voluntary workouts because of the program’s positive COVID-19 tests but is now holding out on returning until the university begins to expel students for making racist or threatening statements.

The Kansas State Wildcats football team announced on June 20 that it wouldn’t be having voluntary football workouts because of the team’s positive COVID-19 tests.

That suspension is going to expire on Saturday, but on June 27, some players said they weren’t going to be participating team workouts.

On June 27, the Kansas State football came out and said that it would not “play, practice, or meet” until the school makes changes to prevent racism. The team is asking for the university’s administrators to put a policy in place that would “allow a student to be dismissed for displaying openly racist, threatening, or disrespectful action toward a student or groups of students.”

The team’s demands stem from a tweet by Kansas State student Jordan McNeil who tweeted, “Congratulations to George Floyd on being drug free for an entire month!” The tweet has since been deleted by Twitter, but can still be seen on some news sites. 

Football players were not the only ones to tweet their intention to sit out and until the policy is in place.

Women’s basketball player Christianna Carr said she also wouldn’t play if there weren’t changes within the university. 

Progress is being made according to some Kansas State student-athletes.

The football team’s Quarterback Skylar Thompson, tweeted on Thursday that team has “decided to return to workouts with our teammates” and that “the plans and action items released Wednesday [by the university] are great first steps in our goal of defeating hate and racism on our campus.”

Iowa State has been having voluntary football workouts since June 15 and no players have stated that they are boycotting workouts.

The Iowa State athletic department has not released any updates on COVID-19 cases since June 25, when they said four out 160 football players and staff tested positive.

Previously, 10 Iowa State student-athletes had tested positive for COVID-19.

Before that, Iowa State reported on June 3, that a student worker had tested positive for COVID-19 and that four student-athletes were self-quarantining.