Last Friday the Wisconsin football program and its fans were off-the-charts excited. Not only had the ninth-ranked Badgers crushed Illinois 45-7 in the season opener, it happened with the most-hyped recruit in school history — quarterback Graham Mertz — throwing five touchdowns.

Five days later, though, the mood could not have been any different. Not after the school announced 12 players or staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus, including coach Paul Chryst. It led Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez and Wisconsin chancellor Rebecca Blank, in coordination with the Big Ten, to suspend all football activities for seven days and cancel the Badgers game at Nebraska this Saturday.

“We just felt like with those numbers we had to get our arms around this,” Alvarez said Wednesday. “We didn’t feel comfortable, particularly with as few (positive tests) as we’ve had prior to (the game), so we just felt it was necessary to control it now.”

Wisconsin’s situation, as bad as it was, did not meet the Big Ten’s threshold that would have mandated them shutting things down. It was in the orange/red category, which meant the team would have to alter its practice and meeting schedule and also consider the viability of continuing with playing games. The Badgers determined it wasn’t viable.

“You have to put priorities in order and make sure our No. 1 concern is the health and safety of our athletes,” Alvarez said. “That’s the priorities that we’ll keep.”

Chryst, participating in a Zoom call from his home where he must isolate for 10 days, said he was feeling good and not experiencing any symptoms. He said the other five members of his staff were in the same boat. And though he couldn’t say how the six players that tested positive were doing, he did offer that, right now, they’ve “been fortunate in a lot of ways.”

When the Big Ten decided to return and play a fall season it was counting on the advancement of rapid daily antigen tests to catch the virus early and, as Alvarez said multiple times, give them the peace of mind that the playing field was a clean one each day.

But the outbreak, which reportedly includes Mertz and Chase Wolf, proves the testing isn’t perfect. In fact, Chryst said he took an antigen test Tuesday morning and it came back negative. Later in the day, he took the more reliable but slower-on-results PCR test and was informed Wednesday that he had tested positive.

“I don’t profess to be an expert on this but this is one part of this virus,” Chryst said. “It gets you in a number of different ways. We don’t know. Did we have one superspreader? I don’t know that.”

The Nebraska game will not be made up, as the Big Ten did not build in any bye weeks in its eight-game schedule because it started so late, and the conference still wanted its teams to have a chance at the College Football Playoff. The game will count as a no contest instead of a forfeit.

In terms of its impact on the Badgers chances of winning the Big Ten West and playing in the conference title game, they are still very much in the race. Teams have to play at least six games to be eligible, assuming the average total number of games each team plays stays at eight. If the average number is seven, then teams would need to play five games, and so on.

If you want to wade into the weeds of teams playing uneven schedules and the potential tiebreakers to determine which squad will make the Big Ten title game, you can find that here.

That’s what we know. What we don’t know is when the Badgers will actually be able to play next. Right now, they can’t be back in the facility until next Wednesday at the earliest. That would give them just three days to prep for a visit from Purdue on Nov. 7.

“We’ll see where we are as far as testing and we’ll make that decision as we move closer to the game,” Alvarez said. “The most important thing right now is to quarantine our players and get this under control. We’ll make that decision, about playing the next game, when that time comes.”

Making things more difficult is that, right now, a total of six staff members won’t be allowed back into the facility until Friday or Saturday, depending on when they tested positive.

“Really none of that matters,” Chryst said. “First, we’ve got to take advantage of this seven day pause. Everyone of our guys will be tested every day. Hopefully we can show progress there and give ourselves the opportunity to be talking about the next game.”

While Chryst and his staff members must wait 10 days to rejoin the team, players that test positive are out 21 days. Ten of those days they won’t be able to do any physical activity and will start having cardiac testing 14 days after the positive test.

That delay could leave the Badgers without several key players if they end up playing the Boilermakers, including Mertz and Wolf. If there is a sliver of good news, the fact Mertz reportedly tested positive Saturday would allow him to return in time for the Michigan game Nov. 14. It’s the potential of being able to play that game, and the ones after it, that led to what happened Wednesday.

“We just felt it was important, if we wanted to continue playing the (rest) of the year, to make this move right now and control the virus at this point,” Alvarez said.