ACC announces COVID-19 rescheduling policy, updates protocols

The Atlantic Coast Conference on Thursday announced updates to its COVID-19 protocols as well as a rescheduling policy for fall sports. If a team is unable to play a conference game on the originally scheduled date because of an insufficient number …

The Atlantic Coast Conference on Thursday announced updates to its COVID-19 protocols as well as a rescheduling policy for fall sports.

If a team is unable to play a conference game on the originally scheduled date because of an insufficient number of players available related to COVID-19 issues, that team will be required to forfeit. In that scenario, the team that forfeited will be assigned a loss while its scheduled opponent would be awarded a win, and both results would be applied to the conference standings.

If neither team is able to compete because of COVID-related hits to their respective rosters, both teams will be forced to forfeit with each being assigned a loss that will apply to the league standings. If a conference game can’t be played on its orginally scheduled date because of factors directly associated with a Game Discontinuation Consideration as listed in the league’s medical advisory group report, the conference’s sport rescheduling policy will apply.

The rescheduling policy will apply to football, field hockey, men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball.

As part of the ACC’s updated COVID-19 protocols, teams with a vaccination rate of at least 85% can relax mitigation strategies such as masking and social distancing during meetings and while traveling. Unvaccinated individuals on a team that hasn’t met that vaccination threshold must receive three PCR tests per week.

Clemson’s football team has reached the 85% vaccination threshold, head coach Dabo Swinney said earlier this week.

“We’re not quite at 100%,” Swinney said, “but we’re in a good place.”

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