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SportsPulse: Dan Wolken reacts to the second College Football Playoff rankings and believes Ohio State can get into the playoff without qualifying for the Big Ten championship game given the committee's track record. USA TODAY

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The Texas Tech athletics department announced Thursday that Red Raiders football coach Matt Wells has tested positive for COVID-19 and returned 真人百家家乐官网网站home to self-isolate.

Wells will work remotely leading up to Tech's 真人百家家乐官网网站home game at noon ET Saturday against Kansas. Assuming Wells can not be present at Jones AT&T Stadium, defensive coordinator Keith Patterson will assume the head coach's duties for the game.

"He will remain in the Big 12’s testing guidelines in order to confirm the positive test," Tech's announcement said. 

Wells would be the third Tech coach in two weeks to not be present for a game. Offensive line coach Steve Farmer and strength and conditioning coach Dave Scholz both missed the Red Raiders' 50-44 loss last week at Oklahoma State.

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Wells said early in the season and again this week that his staff prepared detailed contingency plans and chains of command in the event coaches were sidelined by coronavirus.

Wells said in October that Patterson would be his replacement, linebackers coach Kevin Cosgrove would be Patterson's replacement inside receivers coach Luke Wells would be offensive coordinator David Yost's replacement.

"We have actually already practiced that," Wells said in October. "Not quite going down and staying 真人百家家乐官网网站home, but like in some of the periods and mini-scrimmages and stuff in training camp, coach Luke Wells and coach Kevin Cosgrove have both called some of it, just to practice a little bit, and the kids know that.

"Our players know that and they've kind of, I don't want to say got used to it, but I wanted to go through that in case it did happen. And those guys would be like, 'Yeah, we're rolling with coach Luke, coach Cosgrove, coach K.P. Let's roll.' 

"I just wanted them to be comfortable with it, so I think we've gone through about everything." 

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