The Northwestern Wildcats at Minnesota Golden Gophers football game has been canceled due to COVID-19, it was announced on Monday.
The two schools were scheduled to meet on Saturday, Dec. 5 at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minn. The contest will not be played due to ongoing positive COVID-19 cases and contact tracing in the Minnesota program.
The Northwestern-Minnesota game will be ruled a no contest and will not be rescheduled this season.
“The health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and staff continues to be our main priority,” said Minnesota Director of Athletics Mark Coyle. “The last couple of days have shown a decrease in positive cases, but not to the point where we are able to return to competition. We are disappointed not to be able to compete against Northwestern on Saturday, but we need to continue to focus on following all CDC and MDH guidelines and slow the spread of the virus. We will now shift our priority to doing everything possible to compete at Nebraska on December 12, and our decisions will continue to be guided by our medical experts.”
The Golden Gophers are 2-3 overall so far this season. Minnesota’s next scheduled game is on Saturday, Dec. 12 at the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Northwestern (5-1) suffered their first loss of the season on Saturday at Michigan State, 29-20. The Wildcats are slated to return to the gridiron on Saturday, Dec. 12 at home against Illinois.
Football Schedules
Exactly how does the Big Ten select the teams in its championship game? Is a 5-1 conference record better than a 4-1 conference record? It would seem obvious to me but this really affects the Big 10 and its possible spot in the College football Playoff.
https://bigten.org/documents/2020/10/22//2020_Big_Ten_Football_Tiebreakers.pdf