There are two factors weighing against the possibility of football (and other college sports) happening in the spring: The coronavirus could still be in heavy circulation on campuses, and the sizable set of “amateur” players who intend to play pro football in 2021 may want to avoid risking injury in the immediate run-up to (or even potentially after) the spring NFL Draft. On the other hand: A vaccine could conceivably be approved for distribution in the U.S. by the end of 2020, and the NFL could delay its draft to accommodate a spring NCAA schedule. Universities will also be out an enormous amount of money without football TV revenue, which could at least in part be recouped by a spring season. And if schools are willing to admit that football players are not normal students—an entire-business-model-sized if, to be sure—the fall and winter months provide time to set up individual team isolation bubbles from which competitions could be more safely launched.

As of now, the NFL still plans to attempt its own season. For disappointed college fans who prefer a brand of football that places a heavy emphasis on regionalism and tradition, every major domestic European soccer league—the leagues in the countries whose leaders took the coronavirus seriously enough to nearly eradicate it months ago, while the richest country in the world bumbled onward, infected and dying and losing more and more elements of “normal” life by the minute—is scheduled to resume play in September.