With sports on a hiatus due to the outbreak of COVID-19, fans are starting to get antsy for the college football season.

Currently, several scenarios are on the table for the upcoming season. A normal season is certainly on the table, as is a delayed start to the season most likely in October. Another topic being discussed is a split season, where some games are in the fall and the rest are in the spring. A spring season has also been brought up, although that would seem like a last resort plan.

Some states are starting to open businesses back up again, and that’s great news considering over 30 million people have filed for unemployment.

Recently, Georgia president Jere Morehead announced that UGA is aiming for in-person classes starting in August. Morehead also joined the “Mission: Tim-Possible” podcast out of Athens Thursday to discuss in more detail, including having the expectation of a normal football season with fans.

“Our hope at this point, our expectation at this point is that we’ll have a normal football season and be able to play all of our games,” Morehead said. “We’re certainly working toward that goal. I think as time goes by and we see the course of the pandemic, we’ll have a better sense of when we can, for example, have football players back on campus. That’s a key issue because the football players need to get into conditioning. They need to be involved in practice. We didn’t have spring practice this year, so at some point this summer, that will have to happen for us to have a normal football season.

“Certainly our hope and expectation is that we’ll have fans in the stands,” Morehead said. “You know, we hope that we’ll have our players here at some point during the month of July. We’ll just have to see how the various developments related to COVID-19 affect that timeline, but our commissioner (Greg Sankey) is very focused on this issue. Of course all of the SEC presidents are meeting literally at least once a week to discuss this and many other athletic issues. One of the the things I have to emphasize is that even though Greg McGarity has done a great job of being very conservative in finances, which is now proving to have been absolutely critical, even a school like Georgia would be devastated by not having football season, because football is the driver financially for all the other athletic programs that we have. It’s also what brings this campus together, brings Bulldog Nation together. So, I’m very optimistic, very hopeful that we’ll have a full football season.”

Along with Georgia, Alabama and Missouri have also announced the return of in-person classes this fall. That’s fantastic news for those looking forward to college football.