10/07/20- Football Updates and Scheduling Information including Tiebreaker for Games Not Played

October 8, 2020 Athletic Department Blog Updates

This is being sent to all member schools through the Principal, Athletic Director, and the Football Coach of record, with a courtesy copy to member school Superintendents.  Please forward as necessary. This notice is related solely to 2020 Football. Other notices and posts relative to Field Hockey, Soccer, and Volleyball have been distributed. 

As we have said all along, all of us involved in any way with education have been advised to be nimble to any changes to past plans during this pandemic. Certainly, a higher amount of football games have been lost during this already short fall season than anyone ever predicted or planned and those cancelations continue. As such, several situations have arisen as schools try to determine the rescheduling of future games, and additional minor adjustments are needed. These latest changes and clarifications are solely intended to help resolve issues and prevent further wholesale rescheduling late in the year if that is not the expressed wish of the competing teams.

We continue to receive a great many inquiries regarding seeded football district games that have not been able to be played and would require schedule adjustments if moved. In some cases, these cancelations are related to COVID situations (quarantine, isolation, or contests being played in a red county that was recommended to avoid in our 2020 guidance). It is not necessarily considered a COVID cancellation if a game isn’t played against a red county but was scheduled to be played outside of a red county as that is solely local discretion and was never part of the original planning. Cancelations not mutually agreed upon and not related to COVID remain in consideration for forfeiture per Bylaw 22. It has additionally been noted that there is certainly a difference between the situation of not wanting to play, or perhaps lose, because of injuries or specific players missing due to isolation, quarantine, and an entire team or program being shut down due to quarantine. Our schools have done a very good job discerning between those two situations, but isolated cases have been brought to our attention with a request for remedy.

Because the office maintains the standings and sets the seeding policies for the postseason, it is therefore our staff’s role to ensure fairness. Therefore for 2020-21, a few additional adjustments are being made as follows:

• Any seeded district game unable to be rescheduled (or agreed between the two teams not to reschedule) will have that game winner determined by comparing the final regular-season RPI value solely for the purpose of seeding.
• When figuring seeding percentages, the higher total RPI will receive a win and the lower RPI value will receive a loss.
• No permanent result will be recorded in the scoreboard database for this contest as it is solely used for seeding.
• The first RPI data will be released Saturday, October 10. Keep in mind, this is not the final RPI and only the final regular-season RPI will decide these unplayed games.
• The final regular-season RPI will be released on the morning following the last regular-season game, which at this time is November 6 (unless schools schedule additional games for Saturday, November 7).
• A reminder that all two-way, three-way, and other combination ties that cannot be broken by head-to-head competition will now be broken using the RPI (January 2020 determination). The old three-way tiebreaker is no longer in use.
• All winners will be determined for non-played games, ties will be broken and brackets will be announced on the day following the last regular-season game.
• While schools are asked to avoid playing games on November 7, this does remain a valid and legal option for a game to be played.

Please contact the Commissioner’s office (jtackett@khsaa.org) if you have additional football-related questions.

Stay safe and stay adaptable!

– KHSAA –

About the Kentucky High School Athletic Association
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association was organized in 1917 and is the agency designated by the Kentucky Department of Education to manage high school athletics in the Commonwealth. The Association is a voluntary nonprofit 501(c)3 organization made up of 284 member schools both public and non-public. The KHSAA awards 215 state championships to 51 teams and 164 individuals in 13 sports and 6 sport-activities, funds catastrophic insurance coverage for its more than 106,000 rostered member school student-athletes, provides coaching education and sports safety programs for more than 12,000 coaches, and licenses and facilitates the distribution of training material for over 4,000 contest officials.