Ahead of multiple fall sports beginning season’s this week, including Big Ten football with Nebraska visiting Illinois on Saturday for a week zero game, the Big Ten Conference has finally released the updated policies for COVID-19 impacts to the schedule for 2021-22 sports. A team that is unable to compete due to COVID-19 will have to forfeit that contest and it will be treated as a loss in conference standings, though it will still be treated as a “no contest” should both teams be unable to compete and it cannot be rescheduled.
The move, long expected, mirrors the other power-five league policies in considering these games a forfeit now.