Big 12 reveals its COVID-19 forfeit policy for upcoming sports year
Teams that do not have enough athletes to compete in Big 12 contests this upcoming season, whether it’s due to COVID-19 or any other reason, will be forced to forfeit, the league announced on Tuesday.
The team that isn’t able to play will be credited with a loss in the conference standings while the opponent will be credited with a win.
“Both teams will be deemed to have played the game for purposes of conference standings only,” the league said in a statement. “A forfeit can be declared at any point before a completed contest, and when possible would occur prior to the visiting team commencing travel. Additionally, if both teams are unable to compete, a No Contest would be declared and, if needed, an unbalanced tiebreaker would be utilized to determine Conference championship participants in football or championship seeding in other sports.
“The Commissioner retains discretion to declare a No Contest if extraordinary circumstances warrant.”
This is different from the Big 12’s policy in 2020 when the conference played amid the pandemic. Last year, games were rescheduled or declared a no contest instead of a loss.
The Big 12 had a successful season given the COVID circumstances, playing almost 90% of its games.
The football season, for instance, saw more than half of the league (six out of 10 teams) play all nine conference games. The other four played eight conference games.
As far as TCU is concerned, the football program has more than 85% of its program fully vaccinated while the soccer and volleyball programs are slightly ahead of the football percentage, according to a source.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 7:44 PM.
