The Minnesota Golden Gophers’ Saturday game against Northwestern has been canceled as the Gophers football program continues to deal with a COVID-19 outbreak.
After the game against the Wisconsin Badgers was canceled this past weekend, an early decision was made to scrap the Northwestern game too, after it emerged the outbreak in the football program has now reached 21 players and 26 staff members since Nov. 19.
The Northwestern game will not be rescheduled and will be ruled a no contest.
The decision to cancel was made by Director of Athletics Mark Coyle, Gophers Athletics’ Medical Director Dr. Brad Nelson, and U of M President Joan Gabel.
All team-related activities remain on pause.
“The health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches and staff continues to be our main priority,” said 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.”
