MINNEAPOLIS — Min­neso­ta is call­ing off its sched­uled game Sat­ur­day at Wis­con­sin due to pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es with­in its pro­gram, a move that like­ly knocks the 18th-ranked Bad­gers out of con­sid­er­a­tion for the Big Ten cham­pi­onship game.

The Min­neso­ta-Wis­con­sin game won’t be resched­uled. Min­neso­ta ath­let­ic direc­tor Mark Coyle, pres­i­dent Joan Gabel and ath­let­ic med­ical direc­tor Brad Nel­son opt­ed against play­ing the game after con­sult­ing with Big Ten officials.

School offi­cials didn’t say how many active cas­es they had.

Big Ten pro­to­cols this sea­son say that teams must play at least six games to be eli­gi­ble for the league cham­pi­onship game. If the aver­age num­ber of con­fer­ence games played by all Big Ten teams is below six, pro­grams must play no less than two few­er league games than that aver­age to be considered.

Wis­con­sin (2–1) has only two games remain­ing on its sched­ule and won’t reach that six-game min­i­mum. The Bad­gers dealt with a COVID-19 out­break ear­li­er this sea­son that caused them to call off sched­uled games with Nebras­ka and Purdue.

The Bad­gers’ only remain­ing games are at home against No. 12 Indi­ana (4–1) on Dec. 5 and at Iowa (3–2) on Dec. 12

This will mark the first sea­son since 1906 that hasn’t includ­ed a Wis­con­sin-Min­neso­ta matchup, a dec­o­rat­ed Big Ten rival­ry in which the two teams play for Paul Bunyan’s Axe. Pres­i­dent Theodore Roo­sevelt decid­ed the most intense col­lege foot­ball rival­ries shouldn’t be played that year due to injuries and deaths on the field.

Wis­con­sin and Min­neso­ta have faced each oth­er 129 times, mak­ing it the most-played series involv­ing Foot­ball Bowl Sub­di­vi­sion teams. Wis­con­sin leads the series 61–60‑8.