There probably is not a more often asked and simple question being asked around the world of college football right now more so than "will we see a college football season this year?"

That question certainly is up for a lot of interpretation. Does this year mean this calendar year, meaning a fall college football season? That certainly could follow a delayed start model, as some state high school associations are following.

Does this mean that a spring football season is still considered part of this since it is all part of the same academic year?

Of course there are going to be those that believe that we won't have a season at all and see you in 2021.

It is a big debate as schools are still finding positive tests for COVID coming up and schools like Ohio State have been forced to pause voluntary workouts this month (Ohio State subsequently restarted those workouts).

None of us know all the answers or what things may look like, but we are taking a stab at this question in a year like no other.

Maybe I am just overly optimistic.

Maybe it is a reaction to a few in the industry that seem to be looking cut off their noses to spite their faces, going against all logic and seemingly rooting for a cancellation or at least a delay of the season.

Maybe I just really miss football and can't see the forest for the trees.

With that being said, I have been very bullish on having a season and I have made it here to the final homestretch and I am not going to back off of my horse quite yet.

We have seen smaller divisions cancel fall sports, essentially either delaying football until spring or just declaring, "See you in 2021" when it comes to the game.

But we have not seen the Power Five make any moves that would lead us to believe that they are reaching for the eject handle and trying to find a safe landing down the road.

The next seven-to-10 days will be very critical in determining what we will be watching (and in turn what myself and the staff here will be doing) this fall. As a group, it appears that the Power Five wants to play football but when you break things down to more of an anonymous individual level, there seems to be a lot more worry and concern that we are going to be able to pull this off.

I have made every effort in the world to stay out of the non-sports side of the whole COVID-19 mess but I will say this, it doesn't seem like anyone knows what they are doing when it comes to reporting numbers of positive cases and things of that nature.

So are we really to believe all of the data points that are being thrown out there about spikes? When numbers are put under further scrutiny, they never hold up and have to be revised, always down.

What is going to be the acceptable threshold that college football and college sports will accept here? Because if the number is "one case" is too many, then just put the whole thing in mothballs and let's try again next year. There has to be some sort of grudging acceptance that players will test positive along the way. There has to be a plan in place for that on how to proceed with players being quarantined without having to take entire teams out of competition.

I truly believe that the desire by the players, the programs, the broadcasters and the fans is to play football this year and I really feel that they will start a season.

Will they finish it, as planned?

That is an entirely different discussion.

And the "told you so" crew in the media can still take a partial victory lap if the season does not conclude as planned, with either 10 or 12 regular season games, bowls and a champion crowned.

I have never wanted some of my peers to be more wrong in my entire career.

My head tells me there will be a season, that all the financial incentives will prevail and that college football is simply too big to fail. My heart, however, tells me otherwise.

Gut instinct and general cynicism leads me to believe that there will end up being too many hurdles, too many nightmares scenarios, and ultimately too much liability on universities, administrators and athletic departments, for a season to be held.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith has spoken highly of the flexibility that the Big Ten conference and its member programs have been afforded since canceling the nonconference portion of the season. When extenuating circumstances regarding the virus pop up, teams will now have an additional month to slide things around and come up with solutions, Smith said. But is that really enough time to deal with situations that have yet to be seen in the restarts of other major sports.

College football rosters are drastically larger than a basketball team, a baseball team, a soccer club, a NASCAR pit crew, or virtually any other collection of sports personnel. While that may mean that there is more depth per position to deal with potential breakouts of the virus, it also means there is more potential for a wider spread in general, especially given the physical nature of the game.

In The Basketball Tournament, teams were wholly eliminated from the event if enough its players had been exposed. If a Big Ten team has a large enough outbreak on two separate occasions during the season, two 14-day quarantine periods would take up the entire length of additional time the conference bought itself to deal with issues.

But my final point, and possibly the biggest of all, is that college football is not like a professional sport. As much as most of them want to play, its players are not receiving the benefit of multi-million dollar contracts to incentivize the potential health risk, and thus, comparing the reopening of college football to other professional sports becomes moot.

Make no mistake, I am hoping beyond hope that there is a college football season. I just fear there will be too much to overcome for it to happen.

Yes college football fans, there will be football played this year. Note how I said college football fans rather than ‘Buckeyes fans’ or ‘Alabama fans’ particularly. It is too tricky to definitively say a normal college football slate will happen given how different areas of the country are handling the virus.

There already have been dramatic changes to the gameplan thus far; the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences have switched to conference-only schedules. If California and Oregon and other West Coast states see spikes and shutdowns, perhaps there won’t be any Pac-12 football this season.

The same goes for the Big Ten. If there are shutdowns and more quarantines in Ohio or Michigan, perhaps the Big Ten will have to make the decision to forgo a fall season.

But let’s get away from the negative because I did say there will be some form of college football this year. Television deals certainly will provide some pressure to get in some games. Student athletes are complying with distancing measures and protocol, and when they have to shut down for a week due to an outbreak then that’s what they do (Clemson, LSU and Ohio State have done this already, resulting in the rise of the #IWantASeason hashtag).

Come Aug. 7, though, preseason practices will begin with intent to play around a month later.

We will see an attempt made at a college football season.

Everything comes back to money. Ohio State generates well over $100 million each year from football alone, and although the school can afford to go a year without fall sports, it would leave the athletic department reeling for years to come.

More than a few Big Ten schools would face athletic cuts and salary reductions if no attempt were made at a season. Schools will already lose big dollars on ticket sales- Rutgers announced it will limit attendance at football games to 500, a trend which will continue around the country.

I expect any season held in 2020 to be weighted heavily towards the front of the schedule, with major rivalries and ranked showcases dominating the early weeks. The goal will be to squeeze the highest TV ratings and revenue out of every game possible while games can still take place.

Any hope of postseason football feels outside the realm of possibility right now, but at the rate things are changing, I’m not throwing all hope out the window yet.

Saturdays in the fall without college football seem unfathomable to me. And with the NCAA bringing in the majority of its yearly revenue from football, it’s almost a certainty that every effort to hold a season will be made.