By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

When the NBA resumed their season, I heard Bomani Jones mention on a podcast that he didn’t realize how much he needed the return of basketball, until he watched the opening tip.

As someone who has been concerned with how the college football season was going to take place, while keeping everyone as safe as possible, I understood exactly where Bomani was coming from.

I paused my game of Red Dead Redemption 2 and took a break from binging The Big Bang Theory, to watch what was essentially the opening weekend of college football.

We all know this upcoming season is going to be something completely different than we’ve experienced before and if the first weekend is a taste of what the next few months hold, we’re in for a wild, unpredictable ride.

It didn’t take long for Covid to start wreaking havoc on the schedule with both Houston/Memphis and Virginia/Virginia Tech postponing their respective games.

There were also a few other games postponed, as well as some, Oklahoma/Missouri State come to mind, that were almost cancelled.

However, some of those cancellations brought on new games, (Houston replaced their game against Memphis with Baylor and Appalachian State’s game against UNC-Charlotte also took place because of previously cancelled games), so it was interesting to see teams adapt on the fly to that adversity.

Looks like you can add each team’s schedule to the list of things that will be fluid throughout the year.

There was also the news the Big Ten and possibly Pac-12 will vote to resume their seasons, with a start date sometime in October. If you thought the debates about who made the college playoffs in years past were contentious and heated, imagine what it will be like this year when two of the five conferences will have only played half the games.

As for the actual games, you had three Sun Belt teams (Louisiana, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina) beating three Big-12 schools (Iowa State, Kansas State, Kansas) as well as Georgia Tech’s victory over Florida State.

I know upsets happen every year, and outside of Iowa State not much was expected from any of the losing teams, but with everything going it feels like a precursor of things to come.

A couple weeks ago I thought this might be the year a school from outside the power 5 would have a shot at the playoffs, and I’m still hanging onto that belief, if only by a thread.

Then you had the case of Georgia Southern, who squeaked out a win over Campbell, due in large part to 33 of their players not being eligible to play.

Not all their players sat out because of Covid, but many them did, even if the cause wasn’t directly related.

I realize this will only be a blip on the ticker at the bottom of your screen, but insert Georgia or Clemson in place of Georgia Southern and see how big a story it becomes.

The great 1980’s poet, Tom Keifer (Cinderella) once wrote “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got (Till It’s Gone)” and while I tend to agree with his sentiment, I would like to add a caveat to it.

In some cases, you know exactly what you’ve got, you just don’t realize how much you missed it until it comes back.

It was good to see you again, college football. Here’s hoping everyone can stay safe enough for you to stick around for a while.