Arizona’s 2020 football opener at Utah canceled

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Looks like the Arizona Wildcats will have to wait a little longer to return to action.

The Pac-12 announced Friday it has approved a request from the Utah Utes to cancel Saturday’s season opener against the UA due to Utah not having enough available scholarship players.

“The Pac-12 has approved a request from utah to cancel the Arizona at Utah football game scheduled for November 7. This decision was made under the Pac-12’s football game cancellation policy due to Utah 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 contract tracing protocols. Under Conference policy, the game will be declared a no contest.”

The Pac-12 requires teams to have at least 53 scholarship athletes available for a game, with at least one scholarship quarterback, seven offensive linemen and four on the defensive line.

This marks the second Pac-12 game to be canceled before the season actually begins. On Thursday the Cal/Washington game was scrapped due to Cal having an entire position group under quarantine due to a positive test.

A statement from Utah said the need to cancel was made after learning of “a number of positive COVID-19 cases among student-athletes within the football program. The Salt Lake City area, and the state of Utah as a whole, has been a hotspot of late.

Arizona now must wait until Nov. 14 to start its 2020 season, hosting USC. While the Utah game, at this time, is canceled, it could possibly be rescheduled to Dec. 19 when the Pac-12 was originally intending to have its non-championship game participants face off in a seventh game.

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