Washington pulls out of Pac-12 title game

Washington has pulled out of the Pac-12 football championship game due to COVID-19 issues in the Huskies program, and Oregon will now play No. 13 USC for the conference title on Friday instead.

Washington (3-1) announced Monday it is withdrawing from the championship game after determining the Huskies did not have at least 53 scholarship players available and did not meet the minimum number of scholarship athletes at specific positions.

Huskies coach Jimmy Lake said the entire team is isolating as a precaution and another round of testing for the entire team is scheduled for Tuesday. Lake said Washington did not expect to have any offensive linemen — scholarship players or walk-ons — available to play this week because of positive tests and contact tracing.

Washington’s protocol requires consecutive days of no new positive tests before the team can resume football activities.

Washington had to cancel its game last weekend against Oregon (3-2) that would have determined the Pac-12 North champion due to COVID-19 cases in the program. Rob Scheidegger, Washington’s associate athletic director for health and wellness, said that while the Huskies have dealt with sporadic positive cases for a couple of weeks, there was a spike last Tuesday that led to last week’s pause in practice.

Washington was named Pac-12 North champ by virtue of having a better winning percentage than Oregon. The Huskies had games against California and Oregon canceled due to COVID-19 issues, and their game with Washington State became a game against Utah due to the Cougars’ virus problems.