This Saturday’s Colorado football vs. Arizona State game on Nov. 21 has been canceled due to positive COVID-19 tests and contact tracing protocols within the ASU football program. This is the first Pac-12 game this week to be canceled.
“This decision was made under the Pac-12’s football game cancellation policy due to Arizona State not having the minimum number of scholarship players available for the game as a result of a number of positive football student-athlete COVID-19 cases and resulting isolation of additional football student-athletes under contact tracing protocols,” the Pac-12 said in a statement. “Under Conference policy, the game will be declared a no contest.”
For Colorado football, this is the first game of its season to be canceled. You have to go back to 2013 to find the last canceled Colorado football game when severe rains and flooding forced the cancellation of the Fresno State game on Sept. 14.
“We’ve been real fortunate about keeping our players healthy through camp and so far during the first couple of weeks,” Buffs head coach Karl Dorrell said. “We have known all along that this has been a real possibility, and it’s something that is out of our control. It’s literally a week-by-week deal, and we’ll continue to move forward.”
Colorado Athletic Director Rick George has already stated he will work with the conference to schedule another opponent for the Buffs this week. Last week, Cal and UCLA were able to schedule each other for a Sunday game at the Rose Bowl on short notice after Utah and Arizona State were unable to field the minimum scholarship players.
“We will look at any and all options about us being able to play this weekend,” George said. “It’s too early right now to gauge everything, the conference did pair UCLA and Cal today on very short notice, so we’ll have to see what transpires day-to-day around the league.”
According to a recent report from Nov. 13, the Utah football program currently has 17 confirmed positive cases among football players, coaches and staff. After an additional 11 members of the program were placed in quarantine due to contract tracing, the total number of quarantined individuals is 28. This could force the cancellation of its game this week against USC, opening a possible opponent for the Buffs.
All is not lost for Colorado football if it is unable to schedule another opponent this week. There is still the possibility that any canceled intra-division games due to COVID-19 could be made up on the last Saturday of the season (Dec. 19), as long as those teams are not participating in the league’s championship game.
The next scheduled game for Colorado football is at No. 20 USC on Nov. 28.
Photo courtesy of CUBuffs.com
