Imagining what a college football season could look like — even in midst of COVID-19

For the past two months, college football fans have wondered if there would be a 2020 season, and if so what it will look like.

Quick perspective timeout here. Whether college football is played this fall, next spring or at all ranks fairly low on the nation’s priority list these days. That said, wouldn’t it be nice if we could return to the days when our most passionate disagreements involved which teams should make the College Football Playoff and who should win the Heisman? Talk about first-world problems. Oh, for the days of Booger McFarland overanalyzing the victory formation or point after kick.

Anyway — or, as I guess Webster’s now says we can say, “irregardless” — we still don’t know if there will be a 2020 season. But we now know that if it happens, it won’t look anything like what we are accustomed to seeing.

First we learn there will be no Cornell-Brown game, the Ivy League shutting down all fall sports. And this was going to be Dartmouth’s year.

Next we hear that the Big 10 will play conference games only, not especially comforting news for Rutgers. Within hours, there were reports that the ACC would do the same. Nothing yet from the mighty SEC. If this were a hurricane threat inside of a pandemic, the SEC would be the last ones to flee inland. Just nail up some plywood planks, and we should be good.

At the outset of the coronavirus, as everything from professional sports leagues to even Waffle House shut down, the SEC maintained the position that by gosh we’re going to play, even if we’re the only 14 teams left. As the slogan says, “It just means more.”

I suspect, though, Vanderbilt might have said, “You know, since we’re the Harvard of the league, we’ll let you guys have it.”

There’s nothing official, but it’s looking more and more likely that if the season does start, it won’t be until well after Labor Day. And I still can’t imagine the stands will be more than 25% full. Hey, at least I took the optimistic view, rather than say 75% empty. There could be cardboard cutouts of fake people, which Urban Meyer should like.

For the sake of amusement, let’s say the Power Five teams do play 10 games. It seems like this would be the perfect time to experiment with a different postseason format. Expand the thing to 16 teams — 5 conference championships and 11 at-large teams. That would add 12 playoff games — eight for the first round, four for the quarterfinals. Use the mid-level and New Year’s Six bowl games for the sites. Push the finals back to late January with the national championship game played the week before the Super Bowl.

School, schmool. They’re going to be taking classes on Zoom any way.

Hey, if Major League Baseball can start extra innings with a runner on second base, college football can bend a little to make the playoff more interesting.

It may be folly to speculate about a season that now seems to have a worse chance than Kansas playing at Oklahoma. But what else do we have to ponder, other than a bleak fall without college football?