ESPN college football analyst Chris Fowler remains optimistic when it comes to the upcoming college football season being played but he’s now starting to believe the 2020/2021 season will be unlike any we’ve ever seen thanks to the coronavirus.

According to Fowler, unless firm decisions can be made in the coming weeks, it’s appearing more and more likely that it will be impossible to have a normal season.

“The good news is I’m convinced there will be a college football season in the academic year of 2021. At some point,” Fowler shared during a recent Instagram video. “I would call this informed speculation. It’s just speculation but I’ve had conversations with people who are in the planning stages — they aren’t the decision-makers but they are planning the various scenarios and the what-ifs of different scenarios.”

Fowler then broke down the three scenarios he is hearing in terms of the 2020 college football season being played in the Instagram video below.

“The first scenario is the season starts on time and the season isn’t altered much,” Fowler shared. “Time is running out though unless you think 4-6 weeks is a whole lot of time. Because I’m told by the end of May, there has to be clarity and if you are going to have college campuses open, which you will have to to bring the players back, that’s about the deadline to get things going on time.”

At this point, Fowler doesn’t believe that’s very realistic.

That would take us to one of the other scenarios laid out by the ESPN college football analyst.

“Scenario 2, the season starts late and maybe gets shortened a bit,” Fowler continued. “Maybe you get going in November and you go through January and have to reshuffle the Playoff. To me, that sounds problematic. People are worried about a second wave of this virus coming back when the temperatures up north turn colder. You want to start a season then have to shut it down? To me, that would be disastrous.”

Finally, while this plan may have been seen as very unrealistic just weeks ago, Fowler suggests the most realistic option at this point is moving the college football season to the spring.

“There is a third scenario that’s gaining momentum, which may sound preposterous on the surface but I think a lot of reasonable people feel like it might be the most prudent course of action, and that is football in the spring,” Fowler added. “Beginning some point in February, getting into March, April, May, maybe have the postseason in June. That would have to be reshuffled a bit, it would be bizarre, it would wreak havoc on some other sports in that time of year, but to avoid the financial disaster of having no football in the academic year, I think it might be a fallback position.”

That’s an interesting idea and one that makes sense in many ways. Every avenue for playing the 2020 college football season is going to be fully explored before any games are canceled and it’s at least comforting to know many are searching high and low for the best chance to bring college football back as soon as it’s safely possible to do it.