The Pac-12 announced a new opponent for USC in the championship game on Monday, replacing Washington with Oregon after the Huskies informed the league that it will not be able to play on Friday.
“This decision was made under the Pac-12’s football game cancellation policy and Football Championship Game policy due to Washington neither having the minimum 53 scholarship student-athletes available for the game nor the minimum number of scholarship student-athletes at a position group, in each case 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 league announced in an official statement.
Oregon gets the nod to replace Washington as the team with the next-best record in the Pac-12 North. Oregon and Stanford are currently tied for second place with a 3-2 record, but the Ducks win the tiebreakers as a result of their head-to-head win in the first week of Pac-12 play.
