CHARLOTTE -- ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips at ACC Kickoff today offered an update on vaccination rates among the conference’s 14 members in football, saying that as of yesterday, “over half of our group is above that 85% threshold, with several others on the cusp.” Phillips: “We all feel like that’s a reasonable target across the ACC.” As for whether the ACC will be willing to change the schedule if a team has players unavailable due to COVID, Phillips said no decision has been made. His comments follow reports this week that the SEC will not loosen COVID protocols as much as planned. “We all really want to wait a couple more weeks or so,” Phillips said. “I think there’s some more information that we’re going to be able to gather. I think we’ll understand the variant a little bit. It’s really at the recommendation of our medical group, along with our ADs and our presidents. So there’s direct alignment that at least this week, we didn’t need to make that kind of statement.”
Phillips, when asked whether the ACC would follow the lead of schools like Notre Dame, which has implemented a rule requiring students to be vaccinated, said that no such policy is in place yet. He pointed out that seven ACC schools have mandated vaccinations, adding, “You can just sense it and see it and feel it, and our policies are going in that direction, too, though we’re not ready to announce it today at the request of the medical advisory group.”
