Two college football programs forced to cut seasons short after ugly incident

A pair of NCAA Division III football teams had their remaining season cancelled after a post-game melee. Averett University had just picked up its first win of the season with a 27-21 triumph over 2-7 Guilford College when a massive postgame fight broke out. Unfortunately, there is no known video of the fight as D3football.com noted that the game's broadcast "cuts off before the postgame handshake starts."

Major Penalties for Brawl

That said, there was no lack of clarify in regard to the after affects of the donnybrook on Saturday. The Old Dominion Athletic Conference, of which both teams are members, issued a press release that stated that the remainder of the season would be cancelled for both schools.

Brawl Impact on other conference teams

Averett still had its Senior Day game scheduled for this week against Roanoake College, while Guilford was set to play at Bridgewater College. Neither game will be played. Instead, the two opposing schools will then be given the chance to replace the missing games against each other "should they choose to do so" per the ODAC's release.

Fortunately, none of the teams involved in the cancellation have conference title possibilities on the line. The ODAC will be won by Randolph-Macon College, which holds a one-game lead in the conference standings over Washington and Lee. Even if R-MC were to lose, they hold the tiebraker based on a head-to-head win over Washington and Lee.

But 5-4 Roanoke and 4-6 Bridgewater will have the opportunity at another game, should they choose to play. Roanoke won the prior matchup between the teams, 24-14, on October 11th.

South Carolina/Clemson Brawl in 2004

This type of incident isn't without any prior similar incidents. Notably, in 2004, a massive brawl broke out between Clemson and South Carolina in their regular season finale. In the aftermath of that fight, both teams were disciplined by their respective conferences by being held out of bowl games for that season. It was actually Lou Holtz's final game at South Carolina.

Former Coach Lou Holtz had his final game tarnished by a brawl that left his team excluded from bowl games. | Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images