INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) released a reminder regarding the media coordination and statistics policy which determines how forfeits are administered in all sports.
The policy states:
“There is no forfeit of a contest until all participating teams are present and the referee or other appropriate contest official has assumed jurisdiction in accordance with the applicable playing rules. When a team does not appear (e.g., due to weather conditions, accidents, breakdown of vehicles, illness or catastrophic circumstances, shortage of players), a forfeit is not recorded unless the rules of the sport provide that option. An institution shall not, for statistical purposes, declare a forfeit for non-fulfillment of a contest. Such instances shall be considered as “no contest.” In circumstances involving institutions from the same conference, the league office has the option to declare a forfeit win and loss for conference-standings purposes only but this does not change an institution’s overall won-lost record. The “no contest” declaration came into effect at the start of the 1977-78 season.
If a league declares a forfeit it does not impact statistics, including coaching records, nor does it affect the overall won-lost records of the teams involved. A conference can, for the purposes of establishing seeding for a conference tournament or league standings in general, alter the conference won-lost records of teams involved with a game that the league labels a forfeit (even if the national office officially calls it a no contest).
Games determined to be “no contests” do not impact the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tools), RPI (Rating Percentage Index) or any other metric, nor are they used for Division II and Division III score reporting. Individual sports committees will maintain the practice of evaluating teams based on their results in games/matches that took place. Discussions regarding how no contests will impact bowl eligibility at the Football Bowl Series (FBS) level are ongoing.”
Information courtesy National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
