If air quality gets too bad for WSU-Cal game, officials will treat it like storm delay

The University of California will treat tonight’s game against No. 8 Washington State as a lightning delay if air quality gets too bad to play, according to a report by ESPN.

This means the 7:30 p.m. game will not be rescheduled, reported ESPN’s Molly McGrath citing Pac-12 sources. Players would be cleared from the field until conditioned improve as is customary during stormy weather, ESPN reported. “It could be a late night,” McGrath said.

Reporting from Memorial Stadium, McGrath said ash was falling from the sky.

Cal issued a statement Thursday stating that it was monitoring the air quality and planned to play the game as scheduled. The NCAA uses a sustained Air Quality Index of 200 or higher as the threshold for delaying or canceling games, according to the statement. At 2 p.m. on Friday the AQI was 177 according to airnow.gov.

Each conference can make its own rules. The Pac-12 does not have a rule. The Mountain West Conference recommends not playing when the AQI exceeds 150.

The predicted AQI high in Beijing over the next 24 hours is 158.

This story was originally published October 13, 2017 at 12:18 PM with the headline "If air quality gets too bad for WSU-Cal game, officials will treat it like storm delay."