When the Pac-12 announced yesterday that due to COVID-19 issues running rampant within ASU's football program, the Buffs' Nov. 21 showdown with the Sun Devils was canceled, it became the fifth game the conference was forced to do away with on account of COVID-related issues.

While this past weekend, with Cal and UCLA — two healthy programs that fell victim to similar cancellations — getting scheduled to face one another on Sunday, the road to Colorado finding an opponent for this upcoming weekend is open.

However, major questions marks linger with respect to the Buffs' ability to play this weekend.

For Karl Dorrell, the cancelation came as a disappointment, although certainly not a surprise.

“We knew that at some point in time it was going to happen during the course of the season where there was going to be a no-contest, a postponement or a cancellation," he said. "We kind of knew that going into (this season)...It is unfortunate for us that we are coming off of two games playing well and winning games and now we have a pause in the season."

In terms of Colorado finding a way to play this weekend, as of right now, it would appear the most likely scenario would be moving up the originally slated Nov. 28 away game at USC a week.

The Trojans are supposed to face Utah this weekend, but the Utes are currently dealing with COVID issues and may not have enough players cleared in accordance with Pac-12 protocol to play.

For Dorrell, he's trying to keep the team level-headed and ready as a highly fluid situation continues to develop.

“We saw what happened to the UCLA/Cal game late in the week where they got an announcement that they were playing," he said. "That might happen at some point in time during the week, so we are on high alert for anything and everything that could happen in this given week.”

Dorrell noted that for Colorado to matchup against a non-conference opponent this upcoming weekend is something that the Pac-12 and its higher-ups (athletic directors, chancellors and presidents) ultimately would have to approve.

However, if its a non-conference game vs. not playing at all, Dorrell said he'd prefer the latter, even if it would be more difficult from a preparation standpoint.

"I think it’d be harder if you tried to play someone out of conference — someone that you don’t have much familiarity with," he said. "That’s the harder scenario to get that type of game schedule where it’s late in the week and then all of the sudden you’re playing someone that you weren’t anticipating."

If this weekend does wind up featuring a game between the 2-0 Trojans and 2-0 Buffaloes — even if word on that happening doesn't arrive until later in the business week — Dorrell is confident that his team will be ready to go.

“I don’t think it’ll throw everything out of whack because from my standpoint, I’ve looked at all the teams and have kind of a pre-preliminary scouting plan for all of our conference members," he said. "So for (us to play USC this weekend), it wouldn’t be a tremendously hard thing for us to shift gears to do, just because we’ve already put some work in for all of our conference members that we were playing so far for this season."