The Oregon-Washington Pac-12 football game, which had been scheduled for Saturday in Eugene, Ore., has been canceled due to COVID-19 concerns within the Huskies’ program, the conference announced on Thursday.
“This decision was made under the Pac-12’s football game cancellation policy due to Washington not having the minimum number of scholarship student-athletes available for the game due to a number of positive football student-athlete COVID-19 cases and resulting isolation of additional football student-athletes under contact tracing protocols,” the statement read, adding the game will be declared a no contest.
If Oregon (3-2) had defeated the Huskies (3-1), they would have won the North Division and advanced to the Pac-12 title game on Dec. 18. The Ducks would have faced No. 15 Southern California (4-0) or Colorado (3-0), who are atop the South Division.
“Not contesting this game is very disappointing to our student-athletes and our fans,” the statement read. “While all of us want to see our student-athletes on the field competing, our number one priority must continue to be the health and safety of all those connected to Pac-12 football programs.”
It is unclear how this impacts who will play in the conference’s championship game since the Trojans and Buffaloes could both be undefeated following this week. The conference could amend its rules to have the league’s lone unbeaten teams meet, according to ESPN.
USC and Colorado had their meeting earlier this month declared a no contest after it was canceled because of COVID-19 issues within the Trojans’ program.
USC and Colorado face UCLA and Utah, respectively, on Saturday.
