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San Diego State was set to compete with UCLA on September 19th before the PAC-12 followed in the Big Ten’s shoes and announced their schools would be shifting to an in-conference only schedule due to the current pandemic. The ruling came as a precaution for the health and safety of their student-athletes, coaches, officials, and all others involved.
From a financial standpoint, the loss of the game will not hurt as significantly as some other Mountain West schools. Neither team paid for their contest to occur and although SDSU expected a rather large number of fans to fill the stadium, they were preparing to allow a mere 25% of normal capacity in due to the threat of COVID-19.
The Aztecs would have faced the Bruins for the 24th time in school history. They have lost 22 games in the series, with their lone victory coming last season, 23-14. Although the meetings have been largely one-sided, UCLA has missed out on all the stellar SDSU rosters this decade as their last contest, before 2019, was in 2009. San Diego State was set to prove their place once again in 2020 but will have to stave off their excitement until their next planned matchup in 2023.
As of right now, SDSU still has out of conference contests scheduled against Sacramento State (home), Toledo (away), and BYU (away), but now each game is in question. Although it is most likely that all conferences will pivot to games between its own programs only, it still affords us the opportunity to watch our favorite teams play, even if it less exposure than we would like.
Stay tuned for any further announcements and news regarding the Mountain West Conference and stay safe during these unprecedented times!