GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- The University of Florida was not blind-sided.

Actually campus and university officials were already planning their COVID-19 response back in Feb.

" I went back and looked at my calendar, and the first meeting I was in related to the coronavirus was Feb. 6. That’s a little over a month ago," UF athletic director Scott Stricklin told reporters on Friday. "So this campus has been working on being prepared for a long time. When we first started talking about it, there were a handful of cases in America, if that many."

Things escalated after US cases started to grow and when students were arriving from spring break.

"You start thinking about the reality that we don’t check people in and out of this campus. They come and go as they please. We don’t know where people have been or who they’ve interacted with or what precautions they’ve taken," explained Stricklin,. "It becomes really daunting really quickly. The same thing, on a micro-scale, we have 500-plus student/athletes and 370-some staff. You’re talking about putting them on buses and planes and traveling around.

"There were some moments this past week when the common-sense meter kicked in – and it probably doesn’t kick in as often as it should," he added. "We were talking about sending out something to our staff about all the thing the CDC is encouraging everyone to do: wash your hands, social distancing..I said, ‘Wait a minute, we’re going to send out something to our staff and we’re going to put five men on a court and have them body up against a bunch of young men from the University of Georgia for the next two hours. What are we doing?"

This past week Florida officials announced that classes will be moved online by next Monday, while the sports world saw everything suspended or canceled.

"When you flip that from figuring out how you play games, whether it’s with no fans in the stands or whatever, to ‘how can we help our society and our communities get through this as quickly as possible,’ you start taking totally different approaches," said Stricklin. "And credit, the SEC and the other 13 school for their decision making and thought process and leadership through all this. We have a great staff here who have managed it really well."

The SEC announced on Friday that all team activities, including practices, meetings gatherings and competition, will be suspended until at least April 15. Meanwhile the NCAA canceled both winter and spring championships.

Currently UF officials recommend students return home if they are able.

"We’re going to encourage our student athletes to do the same thing," said Stricklin. "We realize that not every student athlete will do that and so for that reason we are going to have our training room open so from a sports health, and just a health in general standpoint, we’ll be able to service the needs of those that are here."

If student-athletes are not able to return home, the university has put some measures in place.

"The Hawkins Center, which is our academic center over at Farrier Hall will continue to remain open because we do have some students—even though they’re taking classes online—need to access some computers over there," he explained. "Both our training rooms and the Hawkins Center have been intensely cleaned and sanitized and are getting that on an ongoing basis. Every keyboard, every mouse are getting wiped up on, if not hourly, daily basis."

There will also be a focus on helping student-athletes mentally.

"We have a lot of teams ranked in the top-10 that had a shot to go have a great year," said Stricklin. "I know we have some athletes that are really hurting, but they get it. They understand. In that conversation this morning, we all talked about it, we’re all competitive beings or we wouldn’t be in college athletics. But this can’t be about competitive advantages, this can’t be about beating another school, this is about one thing and one thing only. This is about how do we as a community protect one another and ourselves during this time and try to get back to normal as quick as possible.”

But the support is also extended to the hourly workers that will be without work while the college sports world comes to a standstill.

"We have a lot of hourly people that are here in the UAA on a daily basis. Candidly, that’s our top concern: those 370 people, many of which are hourly employees," said Stricklin. "How do we continue to make them whole? With the stadium workers, we usually contract those out, not on an individual basis but through various providers. We will continue to talk to them to see what they’re facing. All of this so new and we’re still coming at us. We’re trying to piece a lot of those parts together here.”

Stricklin does not know whether or not the entire campus will close in the future or if they will be ready to compete by April 15, but he knows this is the right move.

"The most important thing is we, as a society and community and a university, take the steps necessary to protect our young people, protect our staff and our coaches, and protect our fans who love watching our young people compete. That’s why we’re trying to take these steps.”