WSU’s game vs. Cal cancelled due to contact tracing within Golden Bears program

It’s an all too familiar story within college football this year: two teams just hours away from kickoff and everything comes to a stop because of COVID-19 contact tracing. Though the Washington State Cougars had two games previously cancelled because of infections and the subsequent tracing, they’d never gotten into the locker room to get ready for warmups and then had it happen. Now, they have: due to contact tracing issues with the Cal Golden Bears, WSU’s game against their Pac-12 North foe has been cancelled less than two hours to kick, first reported by Fox Sports’ Bruce Feldman.

The conference confirmed the cancellation a short time later, saying one player tested positive this morning but the resulting contact tracing meant Cal wouldn’t be able to play. It also appeared as though we would’ve gotten our first glimpse at the best running back in the conference, Max Borghi, after he’d missed the first three games of the season with a back injury.

Washington State still has their “crossover” game to go next weekend and should find out who their opponent is later today or early tomorrow, though expect it to be the Stanford Cardinal. It wouldn’t be a true crossover but the Cardinal are actually already in the Pacific Northwest (they beat the Washington Huskies last week and are playing the Oregon State Beavers in Corvallis today) after leaving Palo Alto due to new restrictions put in place by Santa Clara County due to the surge in cases in the Bay Area.

That is, if they can get that game in at all.