The game is off.

The Big 12 and Big Ten Conferences have postponed all college football games this weekend, including the Iowa State-Iowa game slated for Saturday.

This decision came hours after the National Football League, NASCAR and Major League Baseball announced postponement of the weekend athletic events.

“When the NFL decided to postpone the games, it kind of snowballed from there,” ISU head football coach Dan McCarney said. “I wish all of this could have been finalized sooner.”

ISU athletics director Bruce Van De Velde said he met with officials from the University of Iowa, ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and the Big 12 Conference today before reaching his second decision.

Van De Velde said the decision he made yesterday to play the intrastate rivalry game Saturday “was the right call given the information we had.”

He said the time was limited to put in place security and travel precautions that Iowa State and Iowa deemed necessary.

McCarney said traveling across the state “wasn’t really an issue.”

Security, Van De Velde said, “was a factor like anything else was a factor.”

The game will be rescheduled, but no decision has been made on the finalized date. It appears it will be either Nov. 24 or Dec. 1, Van De Velde said.

The 24th is McCarney’s preference, “because there could be three feet of snow on the ground on Dec. 1,” he said.

Tickets will be available at a date to be announced, said Tom Kroeschell, director of media relations for the athletic department. It is not yet known if the game will be televised, he said.

McCarney said he’s “never missed a game in the middle of the season.” However, making it up at the end of the season offers no added problems, he said.

If the game were to be this weekend, McCarney said the players, both Iowa and Iowa State, would have walked across the breadth of the field, together.

“One Iowa State player. One Iowa player,” McCarney said.

But, since it didn’t come to that, he said he agrees with the university’s decision “whole-heartedly.”

“It’s been hard on us, hard on Iowa,” McCarney said. “Hard on everybody,”