Any plans for the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten in return­ing to foot­ball are on hold due to health poli­cies in two states with­in the conference.

The Big Ten changed course Wednes­day and said it will begin an eight-game foot­ball sched­ule on Oct. 23.

The Pac-12 has also recon­sid­ered start­ing its foot­ball sea­son this fall, but does not have approval from state and local health offi­cials in Cal­i­for­nia and Ore­gon to con­duct con­tact practices.

Ear­li­er this month, the Pac-12 announced a part­ner­ship that would give the conference’s schools the capac­i­ty to per­form dai­ly, rapid COVID-19 tests on ath­letes. The rapid test­ing was seen as an avenue for the con­fer­ence to begin play­ing foot­ball and oth­er sports soon­er than expect­ed, but health poli­cies in the two states would pre­vent it.

The Pac-12 CEO Group is sched­uled to meet Fri­day to dis­cuss the conference’s options.

“We are hope­ful that our new dai­ly test­ing capa­bil­i­ty can help sat­is­fy pub­lic health offi­cial approvals in Cal­i­for­nia and Ore­gon to begin con­tact prac­tice and com­pe­ti­tion,” Pac-12 Com­mis­sion­er Lar­ry Scott said in a state­ment. “We are equal­ly close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the dev­as­tat­ing fires and air qual­i­ty in our region at this time. We are eager for our stu­dent-ath­letes to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to play this sea­son, as soon as it can be done safe­ly and in accor­dance with pub­lic health author­i­ty approvals.”

The Big Ten and the Pac-12 decid­ed last month to post­pone all fall sports until Jan­u­ary due to con­cerns about the coro­n­avirus pandemic.

Foot­ball in the Atlantic Coast Con­fer­ence and the Big 12 start­ed last week, with the South­east­ern Con­fer­ence set to kick off its sea­son on Sept. 26. The Big Ten’s Coun­cil of Pres­i­dents and Chan­cel­lor vot­ed Tues­day to change course and begin foot­ball with all 14 teams next month.