Colorado-Arizona State football game canceled due to Coronavirus

The Nov. 21st football game between the Colorado Buffaloes and Arizona State Sun Devils has been canceled due to a Coronavirus outbreak in Tempe, Ariz., the Pac-12 announced on Sunday.

The Nov. 21 game was scheduled for an 8 p.m. kickoff at Folsom Field with broadcast on ESPN 2. The Pac-12 released an official statement about the cancellation:

“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.”

Colorado’s last game to be canceled was against Fresno State in September 2013, when massive flooding shut down much of Boulder County for weeks.

The Pac-12 had originally canceled two games this past weekend due to COVID-19. Cal at Arizona State was the first to be taken off the books, along with Utah at UCLA. Arizona State and Utah were the two schools citing issues with separate Coronavirus outbreaks on their respective campuses. The two schools left out, Cal and UCLA, quickly moved to play each other this Sunday in place of the canceled opponent.

“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.”

A likely scenario, if Utah is ruled out this week, is Colorado hosting the Utes’ opponent, 20th ranked USC, in Boulder. The Buffs would then look for another opponent to fill the originally scheduled date with the Trojans on Nov. 28. As it stands now, USC-Utah is scheduled for a 8:30 p.m. MT kickoff Saturday on ESPN.