The excitement surrounding the return of Pac-12 football took a major hit Thursday.

The conference accepted a request from California ahead of its scheduled game on Saturday against Washington to cancel the game. This comes as the Golden Bears deal with coronavirus cases that have resulted in a significant number of Cal players testing positive for the virus.

The Pac-12 is certainly not alone in having to cancel games this week because of COVID-19 cases. Just look at the Big Ten as Wisconsin is forced to miss another game this week due to more than 20 COVID cases inside the program. The ACC also had to push back Louisville-Virginia a week because of COVID cases.

This problem doesn’t appear to be going away for college football. The Pac-12 is just starting, so they’re in the early stages of dealing with that.

The rest of the Pac-12 is still slated to start its season this weekend.