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While everything looks towards 2021 being a much more normal year for college football than 2020, there are still teams and programs which could have outbreaks of Covid-19 before games.
The slapdash policies of last season have been set aside, with conference commissioners and leagues putting together much more concrete rules about what can and should happen if a game is lost due to an outbreak across a program.
The Big 12 was the first to jump in, with these rules if a team is unable to move forward.
Big 12 forfeit policy: pic.twitter.com/A4nYjlAH9b
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) August 17, 2021
In the event a conference game is canceled due to a team not having enough student-athletes to compete (due to Covid-19 or for any reason), that team will forfeit and be credited with a loss in the conference standings. The opponent will be credited with a win in the conference standings.
At least in the Big 12, there will be penalties for teams that are unable to field a team due to coronavirus outbreaks. And there ire no built-in makeup dates in case games are missed.
We’ll continue to monitor how leagues across the country are choosing to deal with the pandemic when it comes to missed games here.