Saturday's game between Oregon and Washington has been canceled, the Pac-12 announced Thursday.

Washington is below the required 53 scholarship players available to play, due to positive cases of COVID-19 and related contact tracing protocols, the conference said. The game will be declared a no contest, and the Huskies (3-1) will finish atop the Pac-12 North standings.

"I'm so disappointed for everyone involved here. Every year our student-athletes, coaches, staff and Husky Nation circle this game on our calendar and so look forward to this amazing rivalry," Washington athletic director Jennifer Cohen said in a statement. "The student-athletes from both schools have worked so hard, and I'm just really disheartened we are this point where we are unable to play due to our COVID-19 positives within the program, but we will always put the health and well-being of our students, coaches and staff as our greatest priority when making decisions."

Washington paused all team-related activities Wednesday and has not practiced the past two days.

"We are disappointed for our players and fans and for our opponent that our game will not be played this weekend. We are doing everything we can to resume football activities as soon as we can safely do so," coach Jimmy Lake said in a statement.

If Oregon (3-2) had won the game, the Ducks would have won the division and advanced to Friday's Pac-12 championship game against either USC or Colorado.

It is not yet clear if Washington will have enough available players to play next week. Should the Huskies be unable to play, it is not a given the Ducks would play for the title, a source told ESPN. If both USC and Colorado finish undefeated, it's possible the conference could change its rules to pit the undefeated teams against each other.

The Colorado-USC game earlier this season was canceled because of issues the Trojans had with the virus.