Central Michigan’s Lew Nichols III, right, rushes against Eastern Michigan’s Robert Daniel Jr. on Nov. 26 in Mount Pleasant. (AP file photo)

The Arizona Bowl was canceled on Monday night after Boise State pulled out and shut down all team activities due to COVID-19 issues within the program.

The Broncos were scheduled to play Central Michigan at Arizona Stadium on Friday but instead joined numerous college basketball programs that have been hit with coronavirus issues coming out of the Christmas break.

“We feel for the young men in our program who were very much looking forward to closing out their season, and for some, their football careers,” Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey said Monday in a statement. “I would personally like to thank Kym Adair and her team at the Arizona Bowl for putting together a first-class student-athlete and fan experience that we are extremely disappointed to miss.”

Barstool Sports, the sponsor of the Arizona Bowl, tweeted that it made the “difficult decision” to cancel the game, which would have been streamed on its platforms. It becomes the fourth bowl canceled this season after the Hawaii, Fenway and Military bowls.

Central Michigan will instead play Washington State in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, also scheduled for Friday afternoon, replacing Miami in a game that will be broadcast on CBS.

Then just hours before Tuesday night’s kickoff, the Holiday Bowl became the fifth college bowl game canceled when UCLA was forced to pull out because of its own COVID-19 issues with the team.

The Bruins were scheduled to face No. 18 North Carolina State at Petco Park, the home of the San Diego Padres.

A surge in COVID-19 cases across the country has disrupted a second straight bowl season.

The Hawaii, Military and Fenway bowls had already been canceled due to virus outbreaks leaving teams without enough available players. The Sun and Gator bowls have had to scramble to find replacement teams for their games.

North Carolina State is the fifth Atlantic Coast Conference team to have its bowl disrupted by the virus.

Miami, Virginia and Boston College all had to withdraw from their games. Wake Forest is set to play in the Gator Bowl, but will face Rutgers instead of Texas A&M as originally scheduled.

College basketball also will have a notably lighter schedule this week after the pandemic caused numerous games to be canceled or postponed.

The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East announced Monday they were scrapping three and four games, respectively, scheduled to take place over the next several days.

That included No. 2 Duke’s game tonight at Clemson.

Illinois also had today’s game against Florida A&M wiped out because of positive tests within the Illini’s program.

The Big Ten said last week it is re-evaluating its forfeiture policy from August, which gives a sick team a loss if they cancel against a healthy team; if both teams have COVID-19 issues and the game can’t be rescheduled, it’s a no contest.