San Diego State football hit by mumps outbreak with 14 confirmed cases ahead of Pac-12 opener

The number of cases continues to rise as the Aztecs get set to play Texas State on Saturday

Oct 1, 2026 at 10:54 am ET • 1 min read

As San Diego State prepares to open Pac-12 play against Texas State on Saturday, it's dealing with a mumps outbreak among more than a dozen players.

On Sept. 18, the university confirmed three cases of mumps on one of its athletic teams, which the San Diego Union-Tribune identified as the football team. A more recent update from the university has increased that number to 14 confirmed cases and one probable case as the highly contagious virus spreads within the locker room.

As the school monitors the outbreak, it will work with the San Diego Public Health Services on daily screenings, contact tracing, testing and administering doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine booster.

"Because mumps symptoms can develop 12 to 25 days after exposure, these new cases reflect spread within the team and potential exposure to additional close contacts," SDSU said in a statement. "The university continues to take a number of daily actions."

The Aztecs' Wednesday night availability report includes 32 players, but coach Sean Lewis declined to dive into specifics about the mumps outbreak at his weekly press conference.

"There's a lot of different things going on that are football-related and non-football-related," Lewis said. "Due to FERPA and HIPAA, I'm not gonna comment any further on that."

This is the latest setback for the Aztecs in 2026, with the team coming off a blowout loss on the road against Toledo last week. SDSU has now lost three straight games, and it enters conference play with a 1-3 record.

"We had a good conversation this morning about how we have eight weeks left in the regular season," Lewis said about his message to the team. "We knew going into it that we were only guaranteed 12. You want to maximize opportunity with the time that you do have to create more opportunity and more time as you move forward."

SDSU and Texas State are scheduled to kick off at 10:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night.