Saturday’s CU-Arizona State football game cancelled
Nov 16, 2020, 9:33 AM
BOULDER — This Saturday night’s scheduled football game between the University of Colorado and Arizona State University has been canceled due to COVID-19 issues with the ASU football program, the Pac-12 Conference and both schools announced Sunday afternoon.
The Nov. 21 game was scheduled for an 8 p.m. kickoff at Folsom Field with broadcast on ESPN 2. The Pac-12 released the following statement Sunday afternoon about the cancellation of the game:
“The Pac-12 has, after consultation with Arizona State University, cancelled the Arizona State at Colorado football game scheduled for November 21. 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. Under Conference policy, the game will be declared a no contest.
“The cancellation of this game is very disappointing to our student-athletes and our fans. While all of us want to see our football 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.”
The last regular season Colorado game to be canceled came in 2013, when torrential rains and flooding earlier in the week forced the cancellation of the Fresno State game on Sept. 14; otherwise you have to go back to Sept. 15, 2001, when a game at Washington State was canceled due to the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
“We’ve been real fortunate about keeping our players healthy through camp and so far during the first couple of weeks, CU 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.”
CU athletic director Rick George will work with the Pac-12 on any possible replacement for the Sun Devils.
“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.”
There is also the possibility that any canceled intra-division games around the league due to COVID-19 could be made up on the last Saturday of the season (Dec. 19), if those teams are not participating in the league’s championship game.
