Maryland has canceled its scheduled Saturday night football game against No. 3 Ohio State, which became the third top-five team sidelined this week over COVID-19 concerns.
The game was canceled due to an elevated number of COVID-19 cases within Maryland's program, as reported by Sports Illustrated. The game will not be rescheduled, according to the university.
University of Maryland president Darryll Pines made his decision based on a recommendation from university health officials and in consultation with the Big Ten Conference. Maryland released a statement Wednesday regarding the canceled game.
"There is nothing more important than the health and wellbeing of our student-athletes, coaches and staff," Maryland director of athletics Damon Evans said in the release. "We realize that this news is disappointing to all of the Maryland fans out there who were looking forward to the Terps taking on an outstanding Ohio State team, but the responsible thing for us to do is pause football activities, given the number of positive cases currently in our program."
Over the past seven days, eight football players tested positive for COVID-19. Between Sept. 30 and Nov. 10, a total of 1,510 on-campus PCR screening tests at Maryland have been conducted for athletes across all sports. A total of 10 athletes have tested positive.
In addition to the Maryland-Ohio State cancelation, No. 1 Alabama's game at Louisiana State has been postponed, as has the game between No. 5 Texas A&M and Tennessee.
Related: SEC Game Postponed as Several Teams Deal With COVID
