With Washington unable to play due to COVID-19 cases, Oregon will now play USC in Pac-12 title game
Washington is unable to play in the Pac-12 title game due to lingering COVID-19 cases within the program.
As a result, Oregon will instead represent the Pac-12 North in the conference championship game against USC on Friday night in Los Angeles.
The Pac-12 announced the news on Monday, saying the decision was made “in consultation with Washington.”
Washington and Oregon were scheduled to play over the weekend in a game that would have decided the North Division champion. Washington, however, was unable to play and the game was canceled. Because Washington has a 3-1 record and Oregon is 3-2, the Huskies were declared the Pac-12 North champions.
Now, with UW still unable to play, the Ducks will slide in and have the chance to win the Pac-12 for the second straight season.
“The decision was made under the Pac-12’s football game cancellation policy and Football Championship Policy due to Washington neither having the minimum 53 scholarship student-athletes available for the game nor the minimum number of scholarship student-athletes at a position group,” the Pac-12 said in a statement.
“Under Pac-12 Football Championship Game policy, the team with the next best record in the North Division, Oregon, will represent the North Division against South Division champion USC.”
Washington athletic director Jennifer Cohen and head coach Jimmy Lake said the Huskies will now focus on getting the team healthy enough to play in a bowl game.
“Our focus now is getting everyone healthy so we can resume football activities and prepare for a possible bowl game. We are crushed that we cannot bring home the Pac-12 trophy for our fans, staff and players,” Lake said.
On a conference call with reporters, Lake said that his entire offensive line was wiped out.
Wow. Jimmy Lake says they have "zero offensive linemen available to play."
— Mike Vorel (@mikevorel) December 14, 2020
Washington continuing to see positive cases
Washington team physician Dr. Kim Harmon said Monday that the football team has “continued to see positive cases over the course of the last several days.”
“Since discovering a handful of cases within our program last week, we have taken proactive steps, including immediately pausing all football-related activities in our program to try to mitigate the further spread of the virus. Unfortunately, we have continued to see positive cases over the course of the last several days which has continued our pause of activities and ability to return to the practice field,” Harmon said.
Harmon said a “key position group” was especially impacted by the virus and that there was no “path forward” for the Huskies to resume football activities this week.
“We are continuing to aggressively test everyone within our football program and will need to have two consecutive days of negative tests before we can return to the practice field and prepare for postseason competition,” Harmon said.
USC was preparing for Washington and Oregon
Before the Pac-12’s announcement, USC coach Clay Helton said his coaching staff was preparing to play both Washington and Oregon on Friday.
“Right now, you’re really trying to prepare for two teams so we’ll work Washington early this week and do a little Oregon prep at night from a staff standpoint,” Helton said per Rivals.com. “Hoping to gain some more information on exactly where the game is at and hopefully crossing our fingers that everybody is healthy up in Seattle and they have the opportunity to play. But we will be ready for both teams — both Washington and Oregon, practice mostly Washington early in the week with some Oregon prep later in the week.”
Had the decision from Washington dragged out until later in the week, USC would have been in the precarious position of having to prepare for two possible opponents on a short week. Now, the Trojans know that they will be playing Oregon.
Meanwhile, Colorado is left in limbo. The Buffs, the Pac-12 South’s second-place finisher, were scheduled to play against Oregon in Los Angeles on Saturday. The teams were essentially going to be on the ground in Los Angeles as backup options. With Oregon getting moved up to the title game, Colorado is currently left without an opponent for the upcoming weekend.
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