The West Virginia will not host spectators for the Sept. 12 opener against Eastern Kentucky.

The decision was made after officials determined that they couldn’t wait any longer on whether or not the Mountaineers could host any limited capacity for the opening contest.

“It was a tough decision and didn’t come lightly by any means,” Director of Athletics Shane Lyons said in an interview on the school’s official athletic website.

The biggest concern involved with those that made the decision was the threat of the possible spread of COVID-19. For example, if the capacity restrictions would have been 25-percent that would mean 15,000 fans would be coming to Morgantown from various parts of the country.

“You’re bringing individuals from Baltimore, Washington area; Pennsylvania; Ohio and bringing everybody in together. And we’re still not sure exactly the spread. We’re not sure with the start of school how that’s going to look like with classes so we had to make the decision,” Lyons said.

The Mountaineers now aren’t set to host a home-contest until Oct. 3 and the plan is to have fans in the stands for that game as well as the rest from that point forward, but Lyons admitted it will be on a game-by-game basis depending on the developments. Still, the goal is to have fans back inside Milan Puskar Stadium for the Oct. 3 game after the season opener.

In the meantime, officials will be keeping a close eye on the factors that contributed to this decision being made. That involves seeing if the overall spread of the coronavirus is trending down, what does it look like in the student body and what does it look like in Morgantown as a whole?

“Those things are taken into account and looked at and it does give us an additional month,” Lyons said.

The time also will afford West Virginia the chance to observe how other schools are dealing with hosting fans for games and learn things from what unfolds in those situations. That can help them be better prepared for what can be done at Mountaineer Field under these uncertain circumstances.

“It would give us some ability to look at other schools that do have fans and see what went right, what went wrong and we can learn from that,” Lyons said.

With the decision to pull the plug on fans for the first game, along with around a 7,000 shortfall in season tickets, the $5 million deficit to begin with and the cancellation of the Florida State and Maryland non-conference contests the athletic department is looking at around a $20 million shortfall.

“This pandemic has caused all kinds of problems,” Lyons said.

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