COVID-19 strikes again

Pac-12 forced to reshuffle title game after Washington pulls out.

Washington pulled out of the Pac-12 conference championship due to COVID-19 issues in the Huskies program, and Oregon now will play No. 13ranked Southern California Friday for the conference title instead.

Washington Monday it ( 3- is 1) withdrawing announced from the championship 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 lineman — 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.

“We cannot play and we cannot practice,” Lake said. “We have not practiced since last Wednesday, our offensive line is completely unavailable until the following week. There is no way we could wait at all. We cannot play football. We couldn’t play football last week, and we cannot play football this week.”

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

“At that point, the reason why we were being super proactive is because we wanted to be able to play against Oregon and obviously we wanted to be able to play moving forward,” Scheidegger said. “But we want to do that the right way. ... Our path back was to wait until our tests brought back negative results and we just haven’t been able to get to the point where we have all negative results on our tests.”

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 State game became with Washington a game against Utah due to the Cougars’ virus problems.

Now the Ducks, the preseason Pac-12 favorites, will take a two-game losing streak into the title game, and Colorado is left without an opponent this weekend.

Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt reportedly is negotiating a deal with Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea to make the former Commodores player its new head coach. Lea appears to be the school’s top choice.

Lea, 38, is a Nashville, Tenn., native who played baseball at BirminghamSouthern and Belmont before walking on as a fullback at Vanderbilt, where he played from 2002-04. He started coaching at UCLA and also has coached at South Dakota State, Bowling Green, Syracuse and Wake Forest.

Lea has been Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator for the past three seasons. The Fighting Irish made the College Football Playoff in 2018 behind a defense that ranked eighth in Football Bowl Subdivision in yards allowed per play (4.53). Notre Dame is on the verge of making the playoff again. The second-ranked Irish (10-0) play No. 4 Clemson Saturday in the ACC championship.

Vanderbilt fired Derek Mason Nov. 29 after he went 27-55 in seven seasons, including losing the first eight games of 2020. The Commodores ( 0- 9) have lost 13 consecutive Southeastern Conference games, the program’s longest skid since dropping 23 in a row between 200003.

Texas Tech

Texas Tech fired offensive coordinator David Yost as coach Matt Wells responded to two subpar seasons by cutting ties with one of the assistants he brought from Utah State. The Red Raiders (4-6) finished their fifth consecutive losing season, and second under Wells, with a 16-13 victory Dec. 5 against winless Kansas. Wells is 814 at Texas Tech. Yost also was the quarterbacks coach.

Elsewhere

Appalachian State and North Texas will play Dec. 21 in the first Myrtle Beach Bowl. The Mountaineers (8-2) and the Mean Green (4-5) will play at the campus of Coastal Carolina in the first NCAA-sanctioned bowl game in the state of South Carolina. ... Memphis (7-3) and Florida Atlantic (5-3) accepted bids to play in the Montgomery Bowl. Being played as a substitute for the canceled Fenway Bowl in Boston, the game is set for Dec. 23 at Cramton Bowl. in Montgomery, Ala.