A metal fence blocks a closed sidewalk on the west side of the Duffy Daugherty Building while plastic covers part of an unfinished exterior wall.

Its part of the ongoing project to upgrade the football facilities and expected to be completed in August.

Work inside the weight room and on the practice fields, meanwhile, is at a standstill.

Michigan State football suspended workouts on Wednesday after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19 and on Friday announced the entire team would quarantine or isolate for 14 days after a second staff member and a player also tested positive.

Its the latest roadblock in an offseason marked by bad timing that has limited the programs attempt to make progress under new leadership. Mel Tucker was hired away from Colorado to replace Mark Dantonio, who abruptly announced his retirement on Feb. 4 after 13 seasons leading the team.

We want to hit the ground running, Tucker said during his introductory press conference on Feb. 12. Time is of the essence. Were not going to waste any time. We are going to be efficient, were going to be effective in everything that we do.

An offseason coaching search in February is far from ideal but Tucker retained a pair of Dantonio assistants in Mike Tressel and Ron Burton and had his coaching staff in place before the calendar flipped to March. He talked about a culture shift and sense of urgency while noting the gratification derived from creating a to-do list and checking off tasks. A major one was getting a feel for a team that lost half its starters on offense and defense and was moving forward with new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

Well see them work out, well go through spring ball, well be able to evaluate, Tucker said on Feb. 24, in his last press briefing with beat reporters. In the spring its going to be very important for us to install our base schemes on offense, defense, special teams things that we know were going to do and at the same time evaluate the guys that we have so we can go into the summer program and say OK, this is what we think we can do with this group of guys right now.

Tucker and his staff were able to oversee offseason conditioning and the first of 15 spring practices was scheduled for March 17. Four days before a critical portion of the offseason was supposed to begin, spring practice was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Michigan State players and coaches were sent home and spent the next three months communicating and installing schemes via videoconference.

Were going to get through this thing and when they open it back up were going to hit the ground running, Tucker said on March 19 during a radio appearance on the Spartan Sports Network.

There wasnt a way to make up for the loss of spring practice but players began returning to campus on June 15 to be tested for COVID-19 in preparation for voluntary workouts. The NCAA adopted an extended summer schedule with team activities limited to eight hours a week of conditioning, weight training and film study from July 13 through 23. The allotted time extended to 20 hours a week from July 24 to Aug. 6 and could include walk-throughs.

The Spartans didnt even make it through the first phase before workouts were shelved on Wednesday. A team spokesman said the quarantine and isolation began Wednesday and is scheduled to last through Aug. 4, three days before the Spartans were slated to begin fall camp.

Zach Binney, an epidemiologist at Oxford College of Emory University in Georgia, said Michigan States decision to quarantine the entire team was exactly the right move, and complimented some of the other COVID-19 protocols put in place by the university.

Thats one thing to do in the summer, he said of the quarantine. Would you do the same thing in the season? Because, my worry is that you will have a situation at least this bad in the season once you have brought everybody back to campus and you have a lot more people interacting every day and a lot more opportunities for the virus to spread, especially as we get into the fall and flu season.

In a press release sent Friday to announce the two-week quarantine, Michigan State said surveillance testing will be performed on players before they can return to workouts. By then, there might not even be a season to prepare for.

With positive COVID-19 cases rising nationally, the Big Ten on July 9 announced it is planning on playing only conference games this season but has yet to release revised schedules. Michigan State was slated to open the season against Northwestern on Sept. 5, but its online schedule is now listed as TBA.

The NCAA Board of Governors met on Friday but didnt make a decision about fall sports championships and their next scheduled meeting is Aug. 4. Although the NCAA doesnt run the College Football Playoff or bowl system, it would be difficult to suggest its safe for the FBS season to proceed if the rest of the fall sports, including footballs lower divisions, were scrapped.

If the college football season proceeds this fall, Michigan State would likely be at a significant disadvantage. Zero spring practices for a team that has a new coaching staff and lost a significant amount of talent to graduation or early departures for the NFL. Then, just two days before team activities were going to ramp up to 20 hours a week, all workouts were scrapped for at least two weeks.

Who will win the quarterback competition to succeed three-year starter Brian Lewerke? What will be the makeup of the offensive line? What will the defense look like after losing six three-year starters? Those questions, and plenty more, were left unanswered due to a lost spring and linger through the end of July for a team that cant even have players lifting weights in small groups.

This was always going to be a challenging offseason for Tucker while transitioning the program into a new era. And it has only continued to become more difficult.

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Michigan State footballs offseason progress continues to be thwarted - MLive.com