Last week the Big Ten became the first of the Power Five conferences to announce that it was shifting to a league-only schedule for the 2020 college football season, provided that we have one.

Hopes of seeing that Ohio State versus Oregon game were immediately dashed at that point, even if the likelihood of jumping on a plane, going across the country and playing in Eugene (Ore.) seemed like a long shot.

Other leagues are now having to look at their schedules and make a decision as to what they are going to do as we are inside of 60 days to the start of a college football season.

In this week's edition of the 3-2-1 brought to you by our friends at Hague Water Conditioning, we talk a little bit more about this monumental decision by the Big Ten in Kevin Warren's first year as conference commissioner as well as other related topics as college football fans worry about a season that appears to be hanging in the balance.

1 - Big Ten will play league only games

Nine? Ten? September 5th? The week before? The week after?

We don't have the answers but neither do the conference athletic directors nor the conference commissioner. Those details will be looked at in the coming week-plus.

If we are being honest with ourselves, the seed was planted on a league-only schedule months ago, we just did not want to listen to it.

Ohio State AD Gene Smith had alluded to the fact that there was something to be said for familiar hotels, familiar locker rooms and things of that nature. Playing at Autzen Stadium would not provide that for Ohio State, nor would Michigan playing at Washington or some of the other out of conference games that would have required teams to travel.

But more than that, the Big Ten can try and control what the Big Ten can try and control. While nothing is in place yet, this could allow the conference to figure out B1G-wide testing protocols for its member schools.

That is not something that would have been possible with games against the Pac-12 or the MAC or any other conference as every league stands on its own in these matters.

There is a lot around this that we don't know and we will be talking about this at length throughout this entire column, but at least we now know that this is not a plan that is being whispered about in the back rooms of athletic departments, now that it is in the open and announced for the world to know.

Provided there is a season, the biggest loser in this whole move will end up being the MAC, losing 11 games of inventory and more than 10-million dollars in payouts including two large checks that would have come from Ohio State with games against Bowling Green and Buffalo on the schedule.

Now, if the season ends up getting shelved all together or pieced out in an unrecognizable puzzle for spring, this all really becomes a moot point.

But what we do know now is that it may be awhile before we see an Ohio State at Oregon game, even though Gene Smith said on a conference call that he will be in touch with his counterpart at Oregon to look at makeup dates. Ohio State does not have a clear schedule until 2029 for a non-conference game and is booked up from 2021-2023. 2024 has two vacancies but with a trip to Washington already scheduled for that season, it would seem unlikely to go down that season. The next season with a vacancy would be 2027, but a home game with Alabama and a road game at Boston College are on that schedule... meaning that it could be some time before Ohio State fans could check Autzen off of their bucket list.

2 - Following along?

It did not take long for the Pac-12 to follow along and move to a league-only schedule as well.

As we mentioned before, the Pac-12 will lose games against Ohio State and Michigan but on top of that was the season opener of Alabama versus USC along with Colorado and Texas A&M and Cal versus TCU, among others.

The ACC may not be that far behind but will wait until the end of the month more than likely to make a formal announcement.

That would leave the Big 12 and SEC as the two conferences that have not come to the table.

There should have never been any doubt in the minds of anyone that if it is at all possible to play games that the SEC is going to move forward. And that is not a statement of saying that the SEC would be reckless with the safety and health of its student athletes but more a statement that the league has been out in front in terms of trying to find a way, any way to make a season happen.

The Big 12 on the other hand will be an interesting study because if there are no dance partners left, if all other leagues decide to play internally, the Big 12 would have to follow along, or so it would appear.

The conference is the only one that plays a true round-robin with just 10 teams in the league and nine conference games, so it does not signal an opportunity to play "more league games" than it already would.

One other interesting caveat out there is a move to allow games against Division I-FCS games to count toward bowl eligibility, or at least up to two wins. Could a league (looking at you SEC) opt to sprinkle in some of those games on a schedule or is this more of a move for the Group of Five teams, ones that might find a harder road of reshaping a schedule once all of the Power Five teams play in their own yards?

In this section we really are supposed to focus more on what we know versus a question, but do we really know anything at this point?

3 - Ohio State pauses on workouts

It has to take some big news to push this down to item three of this piece but for those who have missed it, Ohio State is not going through voluntary workouts after hitting the pause button after several positive tests came back from within the athletic programs.

Ohio State is not divulging numbers but we do know that it is more than one positive test coming back but we have also been led to believe that it is not an extremely high number either, much like what Clemson and other programs have seen as they started testing athletes.

Athletes who test positive at Ohio State are required to self-isolate for at least 14 days, receiving daily check-ups from the athletic department's medical staff.

This pause also affects Ohio State men's and women's basketball, field hockey, men's and women's soccer and women's volleyball.

Back into the world of questions, when will we see Ohio State resume workouts? The school has not indicated any sort of plan of reopening at this point. There will need to be something in place here in the near future, especially if "week zero" (the week before labor day) becomes a viable weeks to play games. The NCAA Division I Council had put a six-week return to play plan into place before schools had brought athletes back on campus and subsequently several had to pause workouts.

We would expect to hear something very soon as to Ohio State's plans to reopen its athletic facilities.

1 - So what could this schedule look like?

Do you keep divisions with the hope of having a Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis in December or do you just take the top-two teams in some sort of a round-robin (kind of) schedule?

10 games appears to be the right number, which means that there will be misses on the schedule. If you take divisions off the table, you stand to have a more equitable schedule but we are not in certain times right now and games could be fluid.

Gene Smith said last week that we could see a schedule where maybe only six games are on their initially and then games are added as we move on. Seems like a preparation nightmare and would be a travel one for fans, but that leads to a major assumption that fans will be anywhere near the stands if/once these games happen.

Will there be a postseason? Will there only be a College Football Playoff and maybe a couple of other bowl games? Will there just be a decision that "everyone got a taste" of football and we go back to the old "poll system" to declare a national champion after everyone finishes a regular season?

Will we even get to the climax of the season and see football in November? For all the planning that all of these schools have had and the very real situation that there will be positive tests along the way, and the resulting "pauses" that have been taken... it is a pretty big ask to expect to get all the way through the season without interruption and the very real possibility that this is scrapped.

It is kind of exhausting thinking about this.

2 - What about spring football?

There still seems to be a small segment of people who are all on the "lets play in the spring" camp.

How exactly would that work? Are you going to ask players to play an eight, 10, 12 week season, have a few days off and start up the process for getting ready for the 2021 season? Are you going to cut into the 2021 season and shorten it with the belief that will be more fair to the athletes? Athletes that only get "so many opportunities" to play college football?

Do you expect players who have first round grades to play in this spring season? What about second round or third round?

Do we really believe that four or five months is going to change the trajectory on COVID-19? What happened to the experts who were concerned about things in cold-weather months? Have you been to Columbus (Ohio) in March? Or Seattle, or Chestnut Hill (Mass.)?

It just really feels like a horrible idea and one that has not been thought through very well. It is also pretty clear to myself that if you don't play in the fall, you are just not going to play this season.

What kind of prediction is that, Noon?

Give me a second and I will explain.

It is July 13th (well, this publishes on the 13th) and my point is that things will change several more times between now and any sort of "drop dead" date in terms of deciding things.

As of today, we have seen the Patriot League joining the Ivy League in not having fall sports, we have seen the ACC delay its annual football media days for an undetermined amount of time and we just really don't know what tomorrow or the day after holds.

It is difficult to make any sort of prediction in the arena of "what will football look like?" in 2020.

All I am saying is don't get too worked up about what you learn today or tomorrow because there is a lot of time for things to change and change rapidly and we are all just along for the ride.