Why Duke and Wake Forest won’t make up their COVID-altered game
The coronavirus issues that caused Wake Forest’s scheduled game at Duke today to be called off will impact the Demon Deacons’ ACC schedule for another week.
Wake’s game at Louisville, scheduled for Nov. 28, is being moved to Dec. 19.
Due to positive cases and quarantining within the Wake Forest program, the ACC decided Tuesday night to not allow the Demon Deacons and Duke to play their game at Wallace Wade Stadium.
Wake Forest announced the schools would attempt to find a date to reschedule. But, at that point, the only date available, due to the Demon Deacons having games already scheduled Nov. 28, Dec. 5 and Dec. 12, would have been Dec. 19.
Duke’s final two scheduled games are at Georgia Tech on Nov. 28 and at home with Florida State on Dec. 5. The Blue Devils (2-6, 1-6 ACC) are already assured of finishing with a record below .500 and won’t be in consideration for any bowl games that might be played.
Blue Devils coach David Cutcliffe said, with health and safety of his players and staff in mind, he wanted to stick to the established plan of allowing team to disperse from campus, for the first time since July, following the Florida State game.
Duke informed the ACC and Wake Forest it would not reschedule the Wake Forest game.
“To this point in the season, our players have been explicitly compliant, and continuing their isolated housing conditions without academic nor social settings for an additional two weeks would not be appropriate in this unsettling time,” Cutcliffe said. “At Duke, we strive to provide an elite student-athlete experience and while this decision eliminates an opportunity for competition, we feel it is one with the best interests of every member of our program at the forefront.”
With a rescheduling of the Duke game ruled out, the ACC extended Wake Forest’s regular season by a week and scheduled the game at Louisville for Dec. 19.
Because Wake Forest will not play Nov. 28, the ACC will have Louisville play its game with Boston College that day. It had been originally scheduled for Dec. 12.
The ACC has given Wake Forest permission to schedule a nonconference game next weekend if it can find an opponent.
“We are still optimistic that we will be ready to play next week,” Wake Forest athletics director John Currie said in a statement. “Given our uncertainty, the right thing to do for our student-athletes and our ACC partners is to go ahead and release Louisville to play Boston College next weekend as was originally scheduled. Depending on results from Friday’s testing, we intend to resume football activities this afternoon.”
The Demon Deacons’ remaining schedule now includes home games with Miami (Dec. 5) and Notre Dame (Dec. 12) before their trip to Louisville on Dec. 19.
The ACC now has two regular-season games scheduled for Dec. 19, the same day it is planning to play its championship game in Charlotte. The top two teams in the regular season standings will play in the title game.
Due to positive COVID-19 cases at Miami, the Hurricanes’ game with Georgia Tech was moved from today until Dec. 19. But it will only be played if Miami (7-1, 6-1 ACC) is not in the ACC championship game or if the outcome of the game has no impact on who will qualify for the game.
Louisville (3-6, 2-6) has already lost too many games to be in contention for a top-two finish in the league standings. It would take a series of upsets for Wake Forest (4-3, 3-3) to qualify for the game as five teams are currently ahead of the Demon Deacons in the standings.
This story was originally published November 21, 2020 at 9:01 AM with the headline "Why Duke and Wake Forest won’t make up their COVID-altered game."