Col­orado won’t be play­ing for first place in the Pac-12 South this weekend.

The Buf­faloes are slat­ed to play, however.

On Thurs­day night, the Pac-12 Con­fer­ence announced that Saturday’s game between Col­orado and South­ern Cal­i­for­nia at Los Ange­les Memo­r­i­al Col­i­se­um has been can­celed because of COVID-19 cas­es at USC.

Col­orado will instead host San Diego State on Sat­ur­day at 3 p.m. at Fol­som Field. The game will be tele­vised on the Pac-12 Net­work. Ear­li­er this week, San Diego State had its game against Fres­no State canceled.

When COVID-19 issues were announced at USC on Tues­day, CU ath­let­ic direc­tor Rick George con­tact­ed San Diego State ath­let­ic direc­tor John David Wick­er and coor­di­nat­ed a con­tin­gency plan.

“It is unfor­tu­nate that our game at South­ern Cal­i­for­nia had to be can­celed, but as we all con­tin­ue to main­tain, the most impor­tant con­cern we all have is the health and safe­ty of our stu­dent-ath­letes, coach­es and staff,” George said in a press release Thurs­day night. “After the Pac-12 CEO’s cre­at­ed some require­ments for pos­si­ble non-con­fer­ence oppo­nents to fill any vacan­cies cre­at­ed by can­cel­la­tions, we moved ear­li­er this week to find a pos­si­ble oppo­nent to replace the Tro­jans.  When San Diego State’s game at Fres­no State was can­celed for sim­i­lar rea­sons, I spoke with John and we put an agree­ment in place if USC could not play.”

CU (2–0) and 19th-ranked USC (3–0) were set to meet Sat­ur­day in Los Ange­les with first place in the Pac-12 South divi­sion on the line. This week, how­ev­er, USC announced that two play­ers test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, one with symp­toms, and five oth­er play­ers were in quar­an­tine. On Thurs­day, USC announced that an addi­tion­al play­er was show­ing symp­toms. Short­ly there­after, the game was canceled.

“This deci­sion was made under the Pac-12’s foot­ball pol­i­cy due to USC not hav­ing the min­i­mum num­ber of schol­ar­ship play­ers avail­able for the game at a spe­cif­ic posi­tion group as a result of a num­ber of pos­i­tive foot­ball stu­dent-ath­lete COVID-19 cas­es and result­ing iso­la­tion of addi­tion­al foot­ball stu­dent-ath­letes under con­tact trac­ing pro­to­cols,” the Pac-12 said in a press release. “Under Con­fer­ence pol­i­cy, the game will be declared a no contest.”

This is the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive week that CU has had a game can­celed. The Buffs were sched­uled to host Ari­zona State last Sat­ur­day, but COVID-19 issues at ASU caused the Sun Dev­ils to can­cel the game.

On Nov. 19, the Pac-12 announced that it would allow flex­i­bil­i­ty for its teams to try to find non­con­fer­ence oppo­nents if games were can­celed. CU was unable to find an oppo­nent last week because the Pac-12’s deci­sion came too late in the week.

The Pac-12 cri­te­ria for sched­ul­ing a non­con­fer­ence game requires the out-of-con­fer­ence oppo­nent to fol­low Pac-12 test­ing pro­to­cols. The Pac-12 admin­is­ters anti­gen tests to play­ers and staff six days per week, in addi­tion to at least one PCR test, which is more sensitive.

Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence teams con­duct three PCR tests per week. A BuffZone.com source at a MWC school said last week that on short notice, fol­low­ing Pac-12 test­ing would be “dif­fi­cult but not impossible.”

Pac-12 cri­te­ria also requires that non­con­fer­ence games be played in Pac-12 sta­di­ums and broad­cast by Pac-12 tele­vi­sion part­ners. Those part­ners, Fox, ESPN and ABC, appar­ent­ly passed on the Buffs and Aztecs. Saturday’s game will be the first this sea­son broad­cast on the Pac-12 Network.

When COVID-19 issues at USC sur­faced ear­li­er this week, there were reports that CU and San Diego State could meet up. Asked about that pos­si­bil­i­ty on Wednes­day, CU head coach Karl Dor­rell said the Buffs had not pre­pared for San Diego State, as they were focused on USC.

“(If USC can’t play), then we have to move for­ward with anoth­er oppo­nent,” Dor­rell said. “We haven’t had a chance to real­ly look at any­one oth­er than (USC). If that does change, we’ll be hit­ting in over­drive, try­ing to pick up the pieces that we need to do to get ready to play a dif­fer­ent team.”

Now, that team is San Diego State, which was sup­posed to play at Fres­no on Fri­day. COVID-19 issues at Fres­no State caused that came to be canceled.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mer­cury News report­ed that San Diego State has been “prep­ping for days” for a poten­tial matchup with the Buffs.

CU and San Diego State have played once before. The Buffs defeat­ed the Aztecs, 34–14, on Sept. 7, 2002, at Fol­som Field.

Through the first three weeks of the sea­son, the Pac-12 had two of six games can­celed each week. This week, three games have been can­celed. In addi­tion to CU at USC, Wash­ing­ton at Wash­ing­ton State and ASU at Utah were canceled.

Utah and Wash­ing­ton were able to adjust and sched­ule a game for Sat­ur­day in Seattle.

CU will play the first non­con­fer­ence game of the sea­son in the Pac-12.