Rutgers DB announces he will transfer due to university vaccine mandate
Rutgers defensive back Peyton Powell has decided to transfer to a different school due to the university’s vaccine mandate for students.
All students are required to be fully vaccinated to be on campus to go to classes or participate in sports. Powell says that leaves him “no other choice” but to transfer:
The University of Rutgers has made the COVID vaccine mandatory to attend school and play football, therefore I have no other choice but to enter my name into the transfer portal.
— Peyton Powell (@PPowell_) August 24, 2021
Before Powell tweeted this on Tuesday evening, he had been out of the team’s fall camp practices and head coach Greg Schiano said he wasn’t with the program back on Aug. 4.
Powell didn’t see any game action for the Scarlet Knights during the 2020 season even though he was with the team at that point. He also didn’t play at all in 2019 with Baylor and then enrolled at Rutgers after that season.
Rutgers announced its vaccine mandate back in March.
Rutgers isn’t the only college requiring the student body and faculty to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Ohio State also announced on Tuesday afternoon that they will be doing the same.
With Monday’s news that the U.S. FDA has granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Ohio State will now require every student, faculty and staff member to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
— Ohio State (@OhioState) August 24, 2021
Nine of the Big Ten’s 14 programs have a similar mandate. The remaining five universities could be coming soon though, especially after the news out of Columbus.
That leaves Nebraska, Penn State, Purdue, Iowa and Wisconsin as the five remaining Big Ten schools that haven’t mandated COVID-19 vaccinations for students. https://t.co/ID4rsx9Tqq
— Elton Hayes (@EHDC12) August 24, 2021
Rutgers opens its 2021 regular season on Sept. 2 against Temple.