Maryland football will pause all team activities and has cancelled this weekend's game with Ohio State due to an elevated number of COVID-19 cases, the school announced Wednesday afternoon.

Over the past seven days, eight football players have tested positive for COVID-19.

The decision to pause football activities and cancel Saturday’s game was made by athletics director Damon Evans and university president Darryll Pines, following a recommendation from university health officials, and in consultation with the Big Ten Conference.

“There is nothing more important than the health and well-being of our student-athletes, coaches and staff,” Evans said. “We realize that this news is disappointing to all of the Maryland fans out there who were looking forward to the Terps taking on an outstanding Ohio State team, but the responsible thing for us to do is pause football activities, given the number of positive cases currently in our program.”

The Terps are coming off of the biggest win of the Michael Locksley era, having defeated border rival Penn State last week on the road, 35-19. It is just the Terps' third win in series history.

“We’re obviously extremely disappointed that we’ll be unable to host Ohio State this Saturday,” said Locksley. “It was an opportunity that our team was preparing for and excited about. However, we have and always will keep our players, coaches and staff’s safety at the forefront of our decision-making process. We’ll continue to operate as much as we can virtually as we monitor the situation in hopes of returning to play when it’s deemed safe.”

The Ohio State game will not be rescheduled or made up at a later time.