Washington State virus infections cancel football game at Stanford.
Stanford’s home football game against Washington State on Saturday night has been canceled, marking the third straight week that the Cardinal have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Pac12 canceled the game because Washington State lacked “the minimum number of scholarship players available for the game as a result of a number of positive football studentathlete COVID19 cases and resulting isolation of additional football studentathletes under contact tracing protocols,” the conference said in a statement.
The game, which will be declared a no contest, was scheduled to kick off at 7: 30 p. m. and probably would have ended around 11 p. m. It’s
unclear if the game would have been affected by the new curfew in Santa Clara County that disallows nonessential workers from being out between 10 p. m. and 5 a. m.
“I’m disappointed for our team and our players,” Washington State head coach Nick Rolovich said in a statement. “They have battled through so much this year. We had a good week of practice and were excited to play this game. I recognize the pain they feel with this lost opportunity but this 2020 football team is a resilient group of young men.”
Stanford ( 02), which hasn’t won in more than a calendar year dating to a 4131 victory over Arizona on Oct. 26, 2019, has been hurt by coronavirus protocol in its first two games this season.
Quarterback Davis Mills and receiver Connor Wedington were held out of the seasonopening loss at Oregon because of a thirdparty coronavirus testing protocol error. The duo was not medically cleared until a day before the loss to Colorado last weekend.
The Pac12 announced this week that its teams could host nonconference games in the event that a scheduled conference game was canceled. San Jose State’s game against Fresno State this week was canceled because of a coronavirus outbreak in the Fresno State program.
But Stanford says it explored alternate options to replace Washington State and “at this time does not expect to be able to fill the opening.” The Cardinal are scheduled to play Cal in the 123rd Big Game on Friday.
Gunner Cruz was expected to start at quarterback for Washington State in place of Jayden de Laura, who has tested positive for the coronavirus — a fact revealed Thursday. According to the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., de Laura’s positive test result was just the second for a Cougars football player.