The coronavirus pandemic is altering the college football landscape as we know it. 

Schedules are being reshuffled. Leagues (Divisions 2 and 3) are folding up shop for the season. Notre Dame is in a conference for a change – if only for one season. COVID-19 continues to make its presence felt in all parts of the college football universe.

Never has a money-making machine like college football been forced to recalibrate on the go but that’s what is being experienced across all levels. 

And we’ve still got almost a month before the first games are scheduled to be played, and I stress the word scheduled.

Here’s what I believe: There will be some form of college football in the fall. It’ll just not be delivered in the same package we’ve all grown accustomed to over the past many years you’ve been alive. 

There will be a start to the season. There’s no guarantee there will be a finish. 

There might be fans in attendance; just no telling how many there will be. At this point, I would say masks will be more prevalent than spectators in the stands.

There will be conference games, but for many teams, that’s all they’ll play this year. 

Just look at the Georgia Bulldogs and the rest of the Southeastern Conference.

The SEC reshuffled its schedule and is now not slated to start until Sept. 26. But who knows what the state of the coronavirus pandemic will be then and if it’ll delay, if not shut down, the SEC’s season before it begins. It’s a shocking development for a conference with such prestige and history and  importance in the landscape of college football tradition. But are we really surprised that SEC officials succumb to COVID-19 concerns and made such drastic changes to the schedule? We shouldn’t, and if you are, where have you been?

There will be no ‘Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate’ in Georgia-Georgia Tech; no Sunshine State rivalry in Florida-Florida State; no Palmetto State punishment delivered by Clemson over South Carolina. Because the SEC decided for a conference only schedule, we will not witness rivalries that date back to 1893, in the case of Georgia-Georgia Tech.

In the age of COVID-19 we should be content with whatever football we get to watch this year, even if it the package it comes in is something we’re not used to. After all, isn’t that what we’re experiencing every day now? Nothing is the same and neither will be college football.

Clint Thompson is a special contributor to the Valdosta Daily Times.