With about two weeks to go before the 2021 football season starts, the ACC has released its COVID-19 policies and protocols for fall sports: football, field hockey, men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball.
According to the league: if a 2021 game cannot be played on its originally schedule date, due to a team being unable to player (insufficient number of available players related to COVID-19), that team will forfeit and be charged with a loss. The opposing team will receive a win. The results will be applied to the conference standings.
Going further, and this is where the double-forfeiture comes into play: if a game cannot be played as originally scheduled due to both teams being able able to play (due to an insufficient number of available players related to COVID-19) both teams will forfeit the game. A loss will be assigned to both teams, which will be reflected in the conference standings.
Additionally:
If a 2021 ACC game cannot be played on its originally scheduled date due to any factor(s) directly associated with a Game Discontinuation Consideration as listed in the current ACC Medical Advisory Group (MAG) Report, the Conference’s sport rescheduling policy shall apply.
With regards to testing, vaccines will unsurprisingly play a pivotal role. Programs with a team-wide vaccination rate above 85 percent, among the athletes, and no active COVID-19 cases, may relax “mitigation strategies” around team actives. This relates to masking and social distancing a team meetings, meals and while traveling.
As of right now, six of the 14 ACC football schools are requiring on-campus students to be vaccinated for the 2021 Fall semester. Those schools include: Duke, Wake Forest, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Syracuse and Boston College.
However, the standards are different for unvaccinated athletes on teams with vaccine rates below that 85-percent threshold. Those athletes must be tested at least three times per week — with a molecular (PCR) test.
Unvaccinated individuals on a team with a vaccination rate of at least 85 percent must be tested once per week. Also: depending on how each individual school chooses to proceed, addition testing may be required, too.
More can be read here in the ACC’s full report.
The Atlantic Coast Conference announced today its 2021-22 COVID-19 Game Rescheduling Policy and several key updates to protocols within the league’s COVID-19 Medical Advisory Group (MAG) Report.https://t.co/sdHdaW1qx4
— The ACC (@theACC) August 19, 2021