By Jerry Ratcliffe

The ACC announced its new Covid-19 policy concerning rescheduling football games on Thursday, and it’s a lot more penal than in 2020.

Athletic directors from the league’s member schools approved the new guidelines, which also includes men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey and volleyball in addition to football.

Beginning this season, any ACC game that cannot be played on its originally scheduled date by a team unable to play due to an insufficient number of available players related to Covid-19, that team shall be deemed to have forfeited. In addition, a loss will be assigned to the team unable to play and a win will be assigned to its scheduled opponent, with both the loss and win applied to the conference standings.

For example, when Virginia Tech and Florida State were unable to field a team to play Virginia last season, those games were rescheduled with no penalty assigned to the Hokies or the Seminoles. Under the new policy, both Tech and FSU would be forced to forfeit those games, and assigned a loss. UVA would have been awarded a win in both instances.

Should both scheduled teams be unable to field a team, both teams would forfeit and each would be assigned a loss.

“The ACC’s Medical Advisory Group continues its tireless efforts to deliver meaningful protocols that will provide a healthy and safe environment for our student-athletes and teams,” said Jim Phillips, ACC commissioner. “As a conference, we are extremely proud of the significant progress and overall high rates of vaccination among student-athletes, coaches and staff. “