The Pac-12’s football season hasn’t even started and a game already has been canceled

The Pac-12 season didn’t even get off the ground before its first cancellation. On Thursday, the conference announced that Saturday night’s season opener between California and Washington would be canceled, at the Golden Bears’ request, because one of their players tested positive for the coronavirus and a number of other players had to be isolated as a result.

“This decision was made under the Pac-12′s football game cancellation policy due to Cal not having the minimum number of scholarship players available for the game as a result of a positive football student-athlete covid-19 case and resulting isolation of additional football student-athletes under contact tracing protocols,” the Pac-12 said in a statement announcing the game’s cancellation. It will be declared a no-contest and not be made up.

The Pac-12 is the last of the Power Five conferences to return to the field, with the majority of its teams playing their season openers on Saturday. Under the policy that allowed it to do so, players are tested each day they take the field for practices or games, either via antigen tests or the more accurate PCR tests, which take longer to process. Players must undergo at least one PCR test per week. This policy, designed to contain outbreaks, is more stringent than any of college football’s other four major conferences, which either require three tests per week or, in the case of the Big Ten, daily antigen tests.

On Wednesday, Cal Coach Justin Wilcox announced that a player had tested positive and a “significant” number of players needed contact tracing, putting Saturday’s game into doubt.

“If it is feasible for us to play we are going to play the game,” Wilcox told reporters Wednesday. “Are there hurdles? There are hurdles, yes. With the players in question the game is in jeopardy. If we have the bodies available to play the game we will play the game. Several people are being held out and that’s a legitimate threat to the game.”

According to the Associated Press, Cal’s practice on Wednesday was limited and some team drills were not doable based on the number of players held out. Wilcox wouldn’t specify how many players were sidelined. The player who tested positive is not experiencing symptoms of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“It’s a tricky situation as we all know. We are glad to report that the one positive is asymptomatic and everybody’s healthy. But the result of the contact tracing is significant,” Wilcox said. “We will hopefully learn in the short term where that leads us, but it’s a significant hurdle.”