Former AAC Temple rival UConn cancels football season due to COVID-19 concerns

The University of Connecticut, which played in the American Athletic Conference through last season with Temple and is now an independent in football, has canceled its football season due to the risks of COVID-19

The school made the announcement on Wednesday morning.

“After receiving guidance from state and public health officials and consulting with football student-athletes, we’ve decided that we will not compete on the gridiron this season,” director of athletics David Benedict said in a statement released by the school. “The safety challenges created by COVID-19 place our football student-athletes at an unacceptable level of risk.”

This season’s games against Illinois, Indiana, Maine and Mississippi have already been taken off the schedule. Illinois, Indiana are members of the Big Ten and Mississippi is in the SEC and those two conferences decided not to play nonconference games this year.

Maine is a member of the CAA, which canceled fall sports but allowed football teams to seek nonconference games. The school announced it won’t pursue football games in the fall.

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In addition, UConn also had uncertainty about games with North Carolina and Virginia. Both are members of the ACC, which allows one nonconference game per team, as long as the opponent plays the game in the state of the ACC institution.

UConn was not scheduled to face Temple or any other AAC school this year.

During the spring, Temple and UConn did agree to a future four-year football deal In this four-year agreement, Temple will visit UConn in 2024 and 2027 and host the Huskies in 2026 and 2028.

UConn began spring practice on February 4 and completed a full spring schedule. The school announced that the team has been on campus since early July with zero student-athletes testing positive for COVID-19.