The Atlantic Coast Conference — the conference the Miami Hurricanes are a part of — announced Thursday afternoon that teams unable to play conference matchups this season because they don’t have enough players due to COVID-19 will be forced to forfeit the game.
The ACC’s updated policy is in line with the other Power Five conferences.
The change was made as a part of the ACC’s update COVID-19 game rescheduling policy, which will apply to football, field hockey, men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball conference games for the 2021-22 season.
As part of the ACC’s policy, the forfeiting team will be given a loss in the conference standings while its scheduled opponent will be awarded a win.
If a conference game can’t be played on its originally scheduled date because both programs aren’t able to play due to COVID-19-related absences, both teams will be forced to forfeit the game and will be given a loss in the conference standings.
The changes to conferences’ rescheduling policies with COVID-19 are coming after over 130 college football games were canceled or postponed during the 2020 season.
The UM football team was one of the teams whose schedule was altered by the pandemic last year, with the Hurricanes missing several players for COVID-19-related reasons throughout the season and having to reschedule the final phase of its season after a coronavirus outbreak on team.
The ACC also updated its COVID-19 testing guidelines, with fully-vaccinated individuals not being required to participate in a surveillance testing.
Unvaccinated individuals must be tested a minimum of three times per week if they’re on a team with a vaccination rate less than 85 percent. If the team’s vaccination rate is 85 percent or greater, then unvaccinated individuals will only be required to be tested once per week.
Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz two weeks ago said that the team was close to having 85 percent of players vaccinated and were waiting on some players to be two weeks removed from their second vaccination dose for the program to cross the threshold.
Diaz’ entire football staff has been fully vaccinated.
Potential starters not seen
Defensive tackle Nesta Jade Silvera and left tackle Zion Nelson once again weren’t seen during the first 40 minutes of Thursday’s practice that was open to the media.
Nelson, who’s been playing as the left tackle with the presumed starting offense when available, was also limited during last Thursday’s practice and wasn’t seen during Tuesday’s practice.
Silvera, who started in 10 games last season, had been a full participant in every practice leading into this past Sunday’s intrasquad scrimmage. Like Nelson, Silvera wasn’t seen during the portion of practice open to the media on Tuesday.
