Thanks, Hoosier!
That is poorly written. It reads as if there is a minimum requirement for a team to play a game. Just the opposite, actually. These conditions establish the floor below which the team can elect NOT to play without having to forfeit the game.
A team can play with any number of available players. That's clearly true from reading the paragraph. So why call it a "minimum threshold...to participate"? No idea. Just bad English.
So what it really means.: If you have 53 scholarship players available, and they include 7 OL (at least one of those a center), 1 QB, and 4 DL or more, then you have to play the game. If you don't, you forfeit, it's a Loss in the book for you and a Win for the other team.
But if you have less than 53, or less than any of the position-specific requirements, it's your choice to play or ask for a reschedule. If the game can be rescheduled within the remaining open weeks for each team, it will be. if it can't, it is declared no-contest and neither team takes a W or L.
What that rule does not clarify is this: do injuries count? How about players sitting out, whether because of targeting penalties the week prior, or any other reason? Or is this just covid-19 availability? Not sure about that.
Also, the rule is not very clear on what happens if a team comes into a game with, say, 1 QB, and that QB is injured in the 1st quarter. Can the team then ask for a reschedule? Or does the game go on record no matter what happens once it has begun? I suspect the latter because of that one phrase, "to begin a game." But it's not totally clear.
Go Vols!